"An impossible thing should not be spoken; when it happens before the eyes it is seen: a stone swims in the river, an ape sings a Kashmiri love-song."
Then he remarked casually that, thanks to fasting, torturing his body and submitting to the ordeal of fire, Shiva had given to him a certain wisdom which permitted him to cause living things to change as he willed them to, to increase in size, to expand, and then to shrink back to their original shape.
Couzens's revolted Christianity and outraged European common sense made one last, desperate stand. He doubted and sneered in a weak, half-hearted manner. And Krishnavana repeated calmly:
"When the impossible happens before the eyes it is seen," and he proceeded to perform the miracle.
He bought a little land-turtle, one span in length, and he told Couzens that, with the help of certain incantations, he would cause the animal to grow every day for three days by a span; but on the fourth day he would recite another incantation, and then the turtle would decrease by a span every day for three days until, on the morning of the seventh day, it would have returned to its original size.
Krishnavana put the turtle into a wooden cage,
