I then shuffled
the cards and put three of them in a row on the spring-board in
front of the horse, without looking at them myself. There was
therefore, at that moment, not a human soul on earth who knew the
figures spread at the feet of my companion, this creature so full
of mystery that already I no longer dare call him an animal.
Without hesitation and unasked, he rapped out correctly the
number formed by the cards. The experiment succeeded, as often as
I cared to try it, with Hanschen, Mohammed and Zarif alike.
Mohammed did even more: as each figure was of a different colour,
I asked him to tell me the colour--of which I myself was
absolutely ignorant--of the first letter on the right. With the
aid of the conventional alphabet, he replied that it was blue,
which proved to be the case. Of course, I ought to have
multiplied these experiments and made them more exhaustive and
complicated by combining, with the aid of the cards and under the
same conditions, exercises in multiplication, division and the
extracting of roots. I had not the time; but, a few days after I
left, the subject was resumed and completed by Dr. H. Hamel. I
will sum up his report of the experiments: the doctor, alone in
the stable with the home (Krall was away, travelling), puts down
on the black-board the sign + and then places before and after
this sign, without looking at either of them, a card marked with
a figure which he does not know.
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