sailing my little single-handed cutter during holiday time will be of service to me. I can steer, I can box the compass, I know the name of every sail on a full-rigged ship; and I will guarantee that before I have been forty-eight hours out I will know the function of every bit of running rigging, and where to lay my hand upon it in the dark.”

“Ay, I’ll bet that you will, Dick,” answered Humphreys, with enthusiasm as great as Dick’s own. “And I have not much doubt as to your being able to get a berth as ordinary seaman; for you are a big strong fellow, and for mere pulling and hauling purposes any skipper ought to be glad to get hold of you. Yes, I think we may consider that part of your problem solved. But what about after your arrival in South Africa? How do you propose to proceed at the end of the voyage when you have safely landed? For you must remember that in all probability you will have no wages to draw; people who work their passages are usually shipped at the princely rate of pay of one shilling per month.”

“Yes, I know,” said Dick. “Still, I shall have reached the scene of my great endeavour without cost, and that is the important thing. After that I shall of course be obliged to trust to my own push and ‘hustle’, as you call it, for it is impossible to make any definite plans at this distance from the scene of operations.”

“Quite so,” agreed Humphreys. “And you must also remember that there is always the element of luck, or chance, or whatever you please to call it, in the background, and to be watched for. Opportunity often presents itself literally at a moment’s notice and in the most unexpected fashion, and the one who profits by it is he who is alert enough to seize it as it passes. But there is one thing you must do, Dick; you must take with you a well-stocked chest of drugs, as well as your case of surgical instruments; and, since you will not let me lend you any money to help you on your way, you must allow me to make you a present of that medicine chest just as a token of my appreciation of the way in which you have conducted yourself as my pupil— Nay, boy, you must not refuse me, for if you do I shall be deeply hurt as well as seriously offended.”

“Very well, then,” acquiesced Dick, “since you put it in that way, and so very strongly, I will accept your generous gift with a thousand most hearty thanks, not only for the gift itself, but also for the kindly feeling that prompts it.”

“My dear Dick,” protested Humphreys, “there is really no reason at all why you should feel so extraordinarily grateful, for in doing what I propose to do I shall only be very inadequately repaying you for much valuable assistance rendered, and much very pleasant companionship during the time of your pupilage with me. And do not think that because I have not expressed much voluble regret at this abrupt severance of our connection I do not feel it, for I do very keenly, I assure you; but I see quite clearly that the thing is inevitable, therefore to complain about it would be both useless and foolish.

“Now, there is one other way in which I can help you; and when I have explained to you how tremendous is the power which I propose to place in your hands you will understand, more clearly than I could show you in any other way, the absolute trust that I repose in you. For I tell you this, Dick, in all sincerity, there is not another person in the whole circle of my acquaintance—and it is pretty wide—whom I feel I could safely trust with this power, so potent is it for evil as well as good. But I am convinced that I can trust you; and that is why I have determined to endow you with the ability to perform deeds which to many people will seem positively miraculous.

“You have often expressed amazement at the uniform success which attends my treatment of even my most difficult cases, both medical and surgical, but especially the surgical; and I know, from the remarks you have made, that you attribute those successes purely to the extent of my knowledge. Well, of course, knowledge has something to do with it; but the true secret of my success lies in the free use which I make of hypnotism. Yes, no doubt you are surprised; for you have never seen me employ any of the well-known methods of the ordinary hypnotist. Very true. But my method is not the ordinary method at all; it is one which I claim as my own exclusive discovery, and it is as far in advance of ordinary hypnotism as that is in advance of the methods of the stage hypnotist.

“Almost at the outset of my professional career I directed my attention to the investigation of hypnotism, determined to ascertain whether or not there was anything in the claims set up by its exponents; and I soon discovered that there was something in it, despite the disrepute cast upon it by the grotesque performances of certain so-called entertainers. There is no need for me to detail to you the successive steps by which I at length attained my present knowledge of the marvellous powers of the science. Let it suffice me to say that by diligent study of it I eventually acquired such a mastery of it that it has enabled me to—well, to put it mildly—succeed where but for it I must have failed. And a large measure of this success is due to the fact that I have discovered an infallible method of instantly hypnotising a patient without that patient’s knowledge. They are hypnotised, but they don’t know it; haven’t the remotest suspicion of it. Then I convey to them a powerful suggestion that my treatment of them is going to be absolutely successful, and—there you have the whole secret.”

Humphreys paused for a moment, as if considering whether or not he should say more; then he gazed abstractedly at his carefully kept finger nails, and his right hand wandered to his waistcoat pocket. Then, looking up, he extended the hand toward Dick, saying:

“Just lend me your penknife a moment, will you?”

Dick produced the knife and held it out to Humphreys, who looked at it, then shrank back.

“Good heavens, man,” he exclaimed, “I asked for a penknife, not for an adder! Where did you get that brute from?”

With an inarticulate cry, and an expression of unutterable disgust and loathing, Maitland dropped the penknife to the floor, and then stamped on it savagely, grinding the heel of his boot on it as though grinding the head of a snake into the ground.

“Why, Dick!” exclaimed Humphreys, looking his assistant square in the eye; “what are you doing? What has that good knife been doing to you that you should treat it in that barbarous manner?”

Maitland stared back blankly into the Doctor’s smiling eyes for a moment, then looked long at the penknife on the floor, and finally stooped and cautiously took it between his forefinger and thumb, eyeing it doubtfully the while. Then he suddenly sat down, pulled out his pocket handkerchief, and mopped off the perspiration that freely bedewed his face.

“Well, I’ll be shot!” he ejaculated. “What an extraordinary experience! Will you believe me, Doctor, when I tell you that as I drew this penknife out of my waistcoat pocket it actually seemed to change into an adder in my hand? There was the flat, wicked-looking head, the malevolent eyes, the characteristic markings of the body, and, above all, there was the feeling of it writhing strongly in my grasp, as though it were trying to get enough of its length clear to turn and strike me! Talk about Aaron’s rod and those of the old Egyptian necromancers turning into serpents! Why, I could have sworn that this knife of mine did precisely the same thing! Now, there is a problem for you, Doctor: What sort of mental aberration was it that caused me to imagine such an extraordinary thing as that, eh?”

“Simply, my dear boy, that I hypnotised you ‘unbeknownst’, so to speak, in illustration of what I have been telling you,” answered the Doctor, laying his hand upon Dick’s shoulder. “Hope I didn’t scare you very severely, eh?”