If Diabolus had gone over to Lemmi, they were indeed bereft.

Miss Vaughan, however, remained calm and sanguine:--"I am certain of the celestial protection of the Genii of Light," said Diana, and, producing her talisman, she bent her right knee to the ground, turned a complete somersault without falling, flung her tambourine into the air, which descended gently and remained suspended a yard from the ground, while she herself, passing into a condition of ecstasy, also rose into the air in a recumbent posture.

She remained in this state for the space of fifteen minutes, the silence being only broken by the distant rumbling of thunder.

Many of the spectators could not believe their eyes.

At length very gently her body assumed a vertical position, head downwards, but as a concession to polite feeling the remaining laws of gravity were suspended, like herself, and her skirts were not correspondingly inverted.