I suppose I showed surprise and incredulity in my face, for Heliobas smiled at me and continued: "I will put him to the proof at any time you like. If you wish him to fetch anything that he is physically able to carry, and will write the name of whatever it is on a slip of paper, just for me to know what you require, I guarantee Leo's obedience."
I looked at Zara, and she laughed.
"It seems like magic to you, does it not?" she said; "but I assure you it is quite true."
"I am bound to admit," said Prince Ivan, "that I once doubted both Leo and his master, but I am quite converted. Here, mademoiselle," he continued, handing me a leaf from his pocket-book and a pencil-- "write down something that you want; only don't send the dog to Italy on an errand just now, as we want him back before we adjourn to the drawing-room."
I remembered that I had left an embroidered handkerchief on the couch in Zara's room, and I wrote this down on the paper, which I passed to Heliobas. He glanced at it and tore it up. Leo was indulging himself with a bone under the table, but came instantly to his master's call. Heliobas took the dog's head between his two hands, and gazed steadily into the grave brown eyes that regarded him with equal steadiness. This interchange of looks lasted but a few seconds. Leo left the room, walking with an unruffled and dignified pace, while we awaited his return--Heliobas and Zara with indifference, Prince Ivan with amusement, and I with interest and expectancy. Two or three minutes elapsed, and the dog returned with the same majestic demeanour, carrying between his teeth my handkerchief. He came straight to me and placed it in my hand; shook himself, wagged his tail, and conveying a perfectly human expression of satisfaction into his face, went under the table again to his bone. I was utterly amazed, but at the same time convinced. I had not seen the dog since my arrival in Paris, and it was impossible for him to have known where to find my handkerchief, or to recognize it as being mine, unless through the means Heliobas had explained.
"Can you command human beings so?" I asked, with a slight tremor of nervousness.
"Not all," returned Heliobas quietly. "In fact, I may say, very few. Those who are on my own circle of power I can, naturally, draw to or repel from me; but those who are not, have to be treated by different means. Sometimes cases occur in which persons, at first NOT on my circle, are irresistibly attracted to it by a force not mine. Sometimes, in order to perform a cure, I establish a communication between myself and a totally alien sphere of thought; and to do this is a long and laborious effort. But it can be done."