The Indian—first touching the boy’s head, and making signs over it in
the air—then said, “Look.” The boy became quite stiff, and stood like a
statue, looking into the ink in the hollow of his hand.

(So far, it seemed to me to be juggling, accompanied by a foolish waste
of ink. I was beginning to feel sleepy again, when Penelope’s next
words stirred me up.)

The Indians looked up the road and down the road once more—and then the
chief Indian said these words to the boy; “See the English gentleman
from foreign parts.”

The boy said, “I see him.”

The Indian said, “Is it on the road to this house, and on no other,
that the English gentleman will travel today?”

The boy said, “It is on the road to this house, and on no other, that
the English gentleman will travel today.”

The Indian put a second question—after waiting a little first. He said:
“Has the English gentleman got It about him?”

The boy answered—also, after waiting a little first—“Yes.”

The Indian put a third and last question: “Will the English gentleman
come here, as he has promised to come, at the close of day?”

The boy said, “I can’t tell.”

The Indian asked why.

The boy said, “I am tired. The mist rises in my head, and puzzles me. I
can see no more today.”

With that the catechism ended. The chief Indian said something in his
own language to the other two, pointing to the boy, and pointing
towards the town, in which (as we afterwards discovered) they were
lodged. He then, after making more signs on the boy’s head, blew on his
forehead, and so woke him up with a start. After that, they all went on

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