But in that time I learned to levitate under Holmes’ hand and to swallow a sword without gagging, and we even began to juggle flaming brands between ourselves. When he first saw our conjuring and magic, Bindra was apprehensive, but once he had witnessed the similar reaction of the rustics, he immediately took on the garments of sophistication and scorned to gape, other than secretly. I think he understood that what we did were tricks, not actual necromancy; on the other hand, I do not know that to his mind, there would be much difference between cleverness and supernatural powers.

By the third day on the road, however, he clearly decided to throw himself into the act. On the morning of that day, we passed through a small town, too large for our purposes but convenient for the purchase of supplies. So when the boy turned to Holmes and demanded some money, I figured it was because he’d spotted some brinjal or eggs that he thought we needed, or some of his horrid little bidis. Holmes fished out a rupee, but Bindra left his hand out and said, “Five.”

“Five rupees?” Holmes asked. “But why?”

“You will see.”

Holmes thought about it, and after a moment the remaining coins fell out of the sky, bouncing off the boy’s head. Bindra gathered them from the dust without remark and trotted back the way we had come. Holmes and I continued on our way, for by this time the donkey was nearly as willing to go with us as it was with the boy.

Outside of town, we joined a flock of goats for a time, then found ourselves following a veritable mountain of rustling greenery down the road. When it turned off into a field, we paused to watch a group of men scramble up to loose the huge load of sugar cane from the elephant’s back, leading the animal to one side where it stood patiently, swinging one hind foot while it picked over an offering of the cane it had borne. This was a gur factory, the cane fed through a hand-run crusher so that its grey juice ran into a series of vats set over a fire. All four vats were already boiling furiously, great clouds of intoxicating steam billowing into the cool air. Holmes bargained for half a dozen fist-sized lumps of molasses-rich gur sugar, still warm, which melted under our tongues as we continued on our way.