pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 333
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 333 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN Pierced by a lance, he lay upon the ground apparently dead. A Cossack callously roamed among the dead and dying, rifling pockets and belts. When he came to the form of Bosco, that youth feigned death, knowing that resistance to the ghoul meant a death wound. But while the Cossack robbed the Italian soldier, the latter stealthily raised his unwounded arm and by sleight-of-hand rifled the well-filled pockets of the ghoul, which fact was not discovered by the Cossack until he was far from the field of the dead and dying, where he had left one of the enemy considerably better off, thanks to Bosco's conjuring gifts. Later Bosco was sent captive to Siberia, where he per- fected his sleight-of-hand while amusing fellow-prisoners and jailers. In 1814 he was released and returned to his native land, where he studied medicine, but eventually decided to become a public entertainer. He was not only a clever entertainer, but a good business man, and he planned each year on saving enough money to insure a life of ease in his old age. But events intervened to ruin all his well-laid plans. The sins of his youth brought their penalty. An illegitimate son, Eugene, became a heavy drag upon the retired magician, who was com- pelled to pay large sums to the young man in order to prevent his playing in either France or Germany or as- suming the name of Bosco. In a German antiquary's shop at Bonn on the Rhine I found an agreement in which Bosco agreed to pay this youth five thousand francs for not using the name of Bosco. This agreement is too long for reproduction in this volume, but unques- tionably it is genuine and tells all too eloquently the troubles which beset Bosco in his old age. [304] |