"I think that I shall speak with her, and plead with her to be a better slave girl," said the fellow.

The palanquin was still of course where it had been last, near the center of the stage, lifted off the floor, by its four bearers. To be sure, as the ponderous fellow had drawn them, the curtains were now closed.

The audience was very still now.

The ponderous fellow then pulled back the curtains.

"Ai!" cried a fellow.

Several of the fellows, including Marcus, gasped.

"She is gone!" cried a fellow.

Once again, one could see through the open palanquin, to the draperies at the back of the stage.

The four fellows in turbans, with plumes, then, in stately fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred, carried the palanquin offstage.

Men spoke excitedly about us.

I struck my left shoulder, commending the performer for the illusion.

Others, too, then applauded.

The ponderous fellow bowed to the crowd, and then resumed his character. "I think there is but one chance to recover my slave," he confided to the audience, "but I fear to risk it."

"Why?" asked a fellow.

"Because," said the ponderous fellow, addressing his concerned interlocutor confidentially, with a stage whisper, "it might require magic."

"No matter!" said a fellow.

"There is a wicker trunk," said the ponderous fellow. "It was left with me by a fellow from Anango."

Some of the fellows in the audience gasped. The magicians of Anango are famed on Gor. If you wish to have someone turned into a turtle or something, those are the fellows to see. To be sure, their work does not come cheap. The only folks who are not familiar with them, as far as I know, are the chaps from far-off Anango, who have never heard of them.

"Of course, he may not be a magician," mused the ponderous fellow.

"But he might be!" pointed out an excited fellow in the audience.

"True," mused the ponderous fellow.

"It is worth a try," said a fellow.

"Anything to get your rope back on her," said another.

"Do you think he would mind?" asked the ponderous fellow.

"No!" said a fellow.

I wondered how he knew.

"He may be the very fellow who wafted her away!" said another.

"Yes," suggested another fellow.

"Perhaps he wants you to use the trunk to recover her!" said another.

"Yes!" said a man, convinced.

"He did say he was my friend," said the ponderous fellow.

"Fetch the trunk!" said a man.

"Fetch the trunk!" cried the ponderous fellow, decisively, to his fellows offstage.

Two of the fellows who had borne out the palanquin, their turbans and plumes now removed, appeared on stage, entering from stage right, the house left, each of them carrying a trestle. These were placed rather toward the back of the stage, at the center, about five feet apart. In a moment the other two fellows who had helped to bear the palanquin, they, too, now without the turbans and plumes, as there was now no point in such accouterments, their no longer being in attendance on the insolent slave, also emerged from stage right, bearing a long wicker trunk, some six feet in length, some two feet in height and two feet in depth. This was placed on the two trestles. One could, accordingly, see under the trunk, and about it. It was, thus, in full view, and spatially isolated from the floor, the sides of the stage and the drapery in the back, several feet behind it, supported on its two trestles.

"The trunk is not empty!" cried a fellow.

"The slave is within it!" called out another.

"That is no trick!" said another.

"I surely hope the slave is within it," called the ponderous fellow to the audience, "as I do wish to recover her!"

"She is there!" hooted a fellow.

"I hope so," said the ponderous fellow. "Let us look!"

He hurried to the trunk and lifted away the wicker lid, which covered it. He set the lid to one side, on the floor. He then unhinged the back of the trunk from the trunk sides. It hen hung down in the back, being attached to the trunk bottom. One could see it, through the trestle legs. He then opened the left side of the trunk, letting it, too, hang free, except that it hung to the side. It, too, of course, was attached to the trunk's bottom. He treated the right side of the trunk in the same manner. It, too, naturally, was attached to the trunk bottom, in the same manner as was the left side. The trunk, in effect, was being disassembled before the audience. It was now completely open, the back hanging down in back, and the sides to the sides, except for the front panel, which the ponderous fellow held in place with one hand.

"Open the front panel!" cried a fellow.

"Show us the slave!" cried another.

"That is no trick!" said a fellow.

"Aii!" cried more than one fellow, as the ponderous fellow let the front panel drop forward, to the front. The trunk was now completely open.

"The slave is not there!" cried a man.

"She is not there," said another, startled.

"It would be a poor trick if she was there," said another.

"Why do you show us an empty trunk?" asked a man.

We could see through to the drapery behind.

"Alas, woe!" cried the ponderous fellow, running his hands about the empty space now exposed to view. "It is true! She is not here!" He got down on all fours, and looked under the trunk, and then he lifted up the front panel, running his hand about under the trunk bottom, which was, say, about an inch in thickness. He then, seemingly distraught, let the front panel fall forward again. But even then he went again to his knees and thrust his hand about, to the floor, then between the trunk bottom and the floor. The front panel, even dropped forward, was still about eighteen inches from the floor. The floor could be seen clearly at all times beneath it.

"She is not here!" wailed the ponderous fellow.

"Where is the slave?" asked a man.

"Perhaps she has been kept by the magician," proposed a fellow, seriously enough.

"But he is my friend!" protested the ponderous fellow.

"Are you sure of it?" asked one of the more earnest fellows in the audience. "Perhaps the trunk is not really magic?" said the ponderous fellow.

"That would seem the most plausible explanation to me," whispered one fellow to another.

"I would think so," said Marcus, more to himself than to anyone else.

I looked at him sharply. I think he was serious.

"Do you not think so?" he asked. He was serious.

"Let us watch," I said. I smiled to myself. Marcus, I knew, was a highly intelligent fellow. On the other hand he did come from a culture which on the whole maintained a quite open mind on questions of this sort, and these illusions were, I take it, the first he had ever seen. To him they must have seemed awesome. Too, as a highly intelligent young man, from his particular background, he was prepared to accept what appeared to be the evidence of his senses. Would it not have seemed to him an even more grievous affront to rationality not to do so? I supposed that I, in his place, if I had had his background, and had known as little as he did about such things, might have been similarly impressed, if not convinced. Certainly many Goreans whom I regarded as much more intelligent than I took such things with great seriousness.

"What have I done wrong? What have I done wrong?" moaned the ponderous fellow. He then put up the front panel and latched it to the side panel on the left. "What have I done wrong?" he moaned. He then hooked up the right side of the trunk. It attached to the front panel. "I do not understand it," he moaned. He went to the back and lifted up the back panel and latched it to the side panels. He then reached down and put the wicker lid back on the trunk. "What have I done wrong?" he queried.

"You did not call upon the magician!" cried a fellow.