114 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

the Prince was wont to lie for hours sleepless. I know not whether it was on the voyage to which I have referred, or on some other sea journey, that an incident occurred, which illustrates at once Ibrahim's savagery and his credulity. Amongst the passengers on the Vice-regal yacht was a conjurer who, in common with all his class in the East, professed to be a necromancer and astrologer, and who was anxious to gain the confidence of the Prince. He one day obtained permission to give a performance on deck in the presence of his Highness, and in the course of the entertainment borrowed a valuable watch which the Prince had recently bought at a jeweller's in Pera, and which had had certain writing — probably a text from the Koran — inscribed on the lid. In performing a sleight-of-hand trick, the watch apparently slipped from the conjurer's fingers, fell into the sea, and sunk at once. The Prince was furious, and ordered the conjurer to be bastinadoed on the spot, and then drowned. The man, however, never lost his composure, and bade the Prince not to be alarmed, as he could recover the watch, though it might be lying fathoms deep under the ocean. After pronouncing some sort of incantation, he threw a string overboard with a bait at the end, and in the course of a few minutes drew up a live fish, unhooked it, and, tearing it open with his hands, displayed the missing watch inside the fish's stomach, unhurt, and in perfect order. The Prince was convinced that the conjurer, who could thus command the