Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1916 — ILLUSION [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ILLUSION

By HENRY MORTON

(Copyright, 1916, by W. G. Chapman.) Rev. Arthur Smith and his young wife stopped simultaneously, horrified, In the market place of Travancore. A crowd of Hindus had gathered about a roan who lay, with a placid look upon his face, on a bed of sharp-point-ed nails. After stretching himself out as if he were on a comfortable mattress, the fakir rose up, smiling, and held out his copper bowl for alms. The pice of the populace clattered against the sides. When the bowl was thrust out to the missionary he turned away with a frown and drew' his wife’s arm through his. “Sometimes, Mary, I doubt whether these people can be civilised,” he said. “What a disgusting exhibition! And they call that a holy man!” Mr. Smith was only a year out from the theological college in lowa. He had felt a call to act as missionary among the hekhen. He was a young man of ardent mind and intensely in earnest, but a little narrow, a little incapable of entering into the life of the Indian. Nevertheless he had accomplished a great deal of good in Travancore, and of the people whom he was inclined to think unamenable there were many who spoke with good will of him. . ... It was three days later when he was surprised to see the fakir confronting him in his study. How the man had got In he did not know, for his native servant had not admitted him. “No,” said the missionary sternly. “Yon not give pice to poor fakir?” asked the roan, smiling. “I am here to heal men’s souls, not to encourage such barbarous exhibitions. Do you suppose you can do any good to yourself or othefs by those selfinflicted tortures?” The fakir looked at him gravely. “There are things you know nothing

of, young man,” he answered, “The time may come when ydu will be glad of me.” ' " “I shall always be glad of you, as you call it, if I can get you to come' to our meetings and give up your savage ways,” said the missionary, with feeling. “Don’t you feel anything within you that urges you to anything higher? Do you suppose lying on a of nails leads to a better life?’ “Yet your own prophet has taught that the body must be crucified,” responded the fakir, in excellent English. Mr. Smith stared at him. “Then, if you know that much, you know enough "to reason,” he said. “Come to our meeting next Thursday week and we'll have a talk together.” “I shall come to you next Thursday evening, and we will have a talk together,” the fakir responded. “Salaam !” Mr. Smith rubbed his eyes. The fakir was gone, apparently through the closed door! He called his wife and told her. She was positive nobody had entered the house. She was afraid. “I wish we’d never come to this heathenish place,” she sobbed. “These people are devils. And with the talk of an uprising I —l wish I were back in Des Moines, that I do!” Days passed and the rumors of a native outbreak, increased. The garrison. depleted on account of the war, was insufficient to overawe the fanatics who paraded the streets, threatening death to all foreigners on the occasion of the great annual festival that was to take place the following week. The Europeans were advised to leave. Smith, wavering between the drfuble duty, at last decided to take his wife down to the coast. They were in the midst of packing when the storm broke. A distant murmur rose into a yell. A mob armed with swords came rushing through the streets, burning and looting. The native servants had fled. • Smith hurried his wife into the little garden. A glance showed them that their escape was intercepted. As the hearer of the hated tidings of anpthttt faith, he was marked for the

fury of the rioters. Th«> crowd swept through the garden gate. At their head, his eyes alight with fanaticism, was the fakir, torch and sword in hand. “Kill! Kill 1” the mob shouted. Smith very simply placed his arm about Mary’s waist, and together they waited for the end. With a yell the fakir raised his sw’ord and thrust. Smith saw his wife fall, pierced through the heart. Red swam before his eyes, and he rushed upon the savage with clenched fists. But he saw the sword bright before him, felt a blow on his breast, and, unconscious of pain, realized that the fakir was withdrawing the hilt from his own body. In a swoon he toppled to the ground. And he remembered, with strange Incongruity, that this was Thursday. He heard the yelling mob sweep oae ward, and with his last effort he groped toward his wife, found her hand, and held it. And then consciousness forsook him. Somebody was bending over him, stroking his forehead, lie opened his eyes. He saw his wife kneeling over him. “Thank God you are alive, Arthur!” she whispered. “Are you hurt? Try to rise.” He sprang to his feet, staring at her in bewilderment. There was not a wound upon her; and, looking down, he could see none on himself. “Mary! What has happened?” he cried. “I don’t know, Arthur,” she answered, looking at him in equal astonishment. “I thought I saw you stabbed.” “And you?” he cried in wonder. And then he realized that both had been the victims of the fakir’s illusion; that the man had saved them, either by sleight of hand, or by accomplishing gome one of those illusions that the fakirs perform for the entertainment of their audiences. They fell into each other’s arms. In the distance were the dwindling cries of the mob. Their house was uninjured. And, as they stood there, they saw a troop of cavalry ride down the street, driving the mutineers before them, cutting them down with their swords. “At least, I did not desert my post,” said Smith. And with sudden gratefulness to the fakir he took Mary into his arms again. They had never felt so near to one another. Smith looked up with a start. He was back in his library, and before him stood the fakir, still holding out his copper bowl and whining. * “You no give pice to poor fakir?” asked the man. Smith looked up over his shoulder. When the man had entered the room the clock had pointed to twenty minutest past ten. Now it was still twenty minutes past ten. A,qd the sentence that he man was speaking was the same as that with which he had entered the room. In less than a second the whole of the episode had been implanted upon his mind by the art of the beggar before him. He sprang to his feet. “Mary!” he called. “Did you want me, dear?” answered Ms wife, entering with a placid smile. “How did jthis man get in?” “Why, I just let him in. You know you said you would see anybody—” Smith threw three pice into the copper bowl, and the fakir, saluting gravely, turned and made his dignified exit. Smith turned to his wife. “I think, my dear,” he said mildly, “that in future we shall try—try to get to know a little more about our people instead of—of shutting ourselves away from them.”

Smith Looked Up With a Start.