TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL. (continued 2)

"You mean Lisaldo."

"Lisalda, and Lisalda, and Lisalda."

The sailor persisted—this apparent error seemed to water in his mouth—then remembering himself he became sheepish as a chidden child, and sank presently on to his knees. The page eyed him guiltily, then the sailor took courage in his hands and made sensible his inmost heart.

"I love you, Lisalda, and love has keener sight than many that call it blind. I felt your sex from the first hour you stepped aboard. I kindled to it with an instinct that strangled reason. It possessed every fibre of me through all our days becalmed on Sargasso seas that to me seemed flower shotten meads. I clenched my teeth on it our tropic nights when hand in hand you walked my watch with me, and learnt from me the blazonry of heaven. Months ago I should have given throat to the heart that hungered within me. But in my surly sailor fashion I only tightened my belt around it. I am no saint, Lisalda, I have served apprentice to buccaneers on Carribean seas—men that never set a hand to honest tool save when they planted chests of gold in the earth, I have swam o' days in blood and o' nights in wine. But the hand that scattered the brains of Don and Dutchman was an aspen held in yours. Terror tremendously overruled me, when I would fain have slipped the cable of my desire, and it is a marvel to me now that I kneel at your feet, though I know full well that my revealment is wrung from me by the parting asunder of our ways. Here must I speak or ever after hold my peace, here you may infuse yourself with a heart no less honest than rough, that has beat for naught nor will beat for aught save you; or here you may rule me unworthy of more that has already enjoyed overmuch. It bodes me ill I fear, Lisalda, that you never read a heart so confounded with your own; but, whatever you say will be for me the voice of oracle that is worshipped whether good or ill."

"The oracle is dumb to-night, Ataurresagasti, though you have taught me that I knew your love from the first. I cannot decide at once whether I have done you irreparable wrong, or added to your fulness of life. To-morrow, friend (if that title does not jar upon you) shall learn you all your heart's desire. And (whatever that morrow's disillusion) to-night at any rate, your image will disturb my no longer virgin sleep."

"Your sleep, Lisalda, there's the rub that galls my jealous loin. To-night that I have a share in you (though it be but for to-night) I shudder at the thought of your retiring to the ante-room of the bed-chamber of that other man. Throughout the voyage every lip before the mast has shriven him with curses (not loud, but deep) for the wayward winds his Jonah presence fetched athwart our course. The bated breath of the forecastle credited him with the wearing of a familiar spirit imprisoned in the setting of that ring upon his hand. How did such as you come to foregather with one so unkindly, and withal so far from this your birthplace? And what is his need of you that one so powerful should claim you close at heel?"

"Ataurresagasti, it were too long to tell you how I came to be orphaned, and at buffet with the world. Too long again to recount the chances that transferred me from here to the Indies. Enough that I must have been in desperate straits when I donned the disguise I still wear, and entered the vacant service of my present lord and master. That he lived in evil odour had come to my ears, and that he never kept his servants long, but that they either went mad or died was more than gossip to me that first attended my master to the funeral of my predecessor. I was situated so sorely that I would have worn Satan's livery to earn me bed and board. Now the secret of the wants of my master and the wastage amongst his servants is this: his nerves are completely shattered by terrible experiments, the nature of which I never dare to know. He sees through the veil that round us wraps impenetrably. He is haunted day and night by hosts of beings incorporately awful. Over these, indeed, some sway of his extends (else were he long since torn to shreds), but only by the continual strain of every resource of his science. The demon that is familiar of the ring you speak of—the loathsome creepiness that writhes within a crystal cell and impotently spits at such as dare to see—is on the one hand the crowning glory of his labours, and the envy of the wizard world—and on the other hand an anxious horror that makes cheap the mere routine of Hell. Day it turns to night, night to nightmare, and still the worst of all remains—the hour between midnight and cockcrow when the heavenly patrols are relieving guard and the nether gates swing open and all the rout of Hell are free to seek their own devilish devices. Now you can guess, can you not, Ataurresagasti, why the cabalist never remains alone in the dark?"

"By the God I never praised till I met you, Lisalda, this passes the worst I had imagined. But do you still think so ill of me (after the centuries of mingled life we have crushed into so curt an orbit), do you still so little value my self esteem as to believe me capable (now I know what your service is) of allowing you to continue it for even yet one grain of the hour glass? To the devil with this enemy and friend of his, and let the poor prisoner of the ring have his day! I, too, am a prisoner and feel for all in bonds."

"You are the best of men, Ataurresagasti, and fittest to be free. But for this night at any rate (however your reasons may touch me) I must fulfil my contract, as of use and wont. Whatever new combination to-morrow's sun may bring, it is too late to-night, at any rate, to find a substitute to comrade the broken slumbers of the cabalist."

"It is never too late, Lisalda, to crown my broad shoulders with the lightness of a burden saved from yours. I beseech you, as a lover whom you may yet reject, not to refuse me this (as it may be) last sad privilege—chance itself (if all be not fated from the first) plays patron to my innocent stratagem. The landlord of this tavern of the Four Cross Roads (and may I die the day I see a more ill-favoured fellow) has heard our names, it is true, but can have no means of telling which is which. Do you call yourself the cabin-boy, Ataurresagasti, and vouchsafe me for one brief snatch, to be bone of the bone, and flesh of the flesh with Lisalda (or Lisaldo). The certainty that you are bolted and barred once more in a room alone, will bear me up through all that teems from Tophet. The cabalist is the only eye that could detect the substitution, and he keeps (or you would never have remained his) respectfully on his own side the partition until morning. The dawn may see him damned, so far as his hold on either of us is concerned, and we will set forth (together I trust) about our own peace and pleasure."

"As to that I can give you no promise, Ataurresagasti, save to remember you in any case until the last sigh of life. But this, as you say, is all the more reason why I should let you be my proxy, if it will give you any unfeigned satisfaction. And here comes back our host on the heels of our accord, and the curtain rises on our play."

The sailor rose to his feet. It was as Lisalda said, for such (her secret once revealed) we may as well henceforth style her, Aquelarre having finished his business with the cabalist come to summon the page to his attendance. But he first drew a bottle and three goblets from a press and placed the latter on one of the tables. Filling them to the overflow, he appointed one to each to drink a parting cup. All three raised on high and touched together their goblets in token of sentiment, somewhat hollow. Ataurresagasti had scarcely put his lips to the liquid, when memory started armed from his brain. It was hocussed. There was no doubt about it. He had been drugged once before by the pressgang of the pirate, with whom he had served out his buccaneer articles. Once bit, twice shy. He replaced the goblet on the table, the other two mechanically followed his example. The good fellowship that shone upon his weather-beaten face was in inverse ratio to the ready subtlety that scanned every loophole from within; and presently he swooped down with unerring instinct upon the only possible coign of vantage. The meaning eyes of the landlord had turned upon the innocent eyes of Lisalda. He was staring out her inmost soul. Taking advantage of this absorption of the two, Ataurresagasti reversed the positions of the drugged goblet and that of the landlord. So smartly did he execute this manoeuvre that it would most certainly have escaped the notice of an ordinary observer. But had it escaped the lynx-eyed Aquelarre? The sailor breathed more freely when, upon all three once more raising their goblets, the whole of the hocussed stuff disappeared without question down the landlord's corded throat. All having drained to the dregs, Aquelarre turned and addressed himself to the quondam buccaneer:—

"May I be burnt by the Parliament of Bordeaux if my customer upstairs let me into the secret as to which of you two he mastered. Now I'll be bound 'tis you, my jolly Roger (and not this queasy cabin-boy) that has chaffered for gold his rest o' nights to the wandering Jew up aloft there."

"Your guess does honour to your penetration, Monsieur Four Cross Roads, though you did overshoot your bolt a bit when you called me Jolly Roger."

"Ho, ho, Monsieur Lisaldo, so you turned your skin then with your livery, and no longer acknowledge the Black Flag?"

"How do you know that I had ever anything in common with the Black Flag?"

"Easy as lying, Monsieur Lisaldo, easy as lying. Your face, my friend (and for the matter of that, everyone's face), is as an open book whereon I read. Nay, your hand alone, my friend, shouts your past, your present, and your future to such as I that have ears to hear."

"Of the past and of the present I am already sick at heart, but I am open to receive any index (what it may befit me to know) as to how the future shall shape itself before me."

"A good wish upon you! I am permitted to tell you, at any rate, that you chose your vocation under a healthy star, for you were never born to be drowned!"

The sailor hardly knew whether to be amused or annoyed at the tone adopted by the chiromantist. He continued to balance the matter in a confused sort of way, after he had taken shy leave of Lisalda. Arrived in his room, he barred and bolted the outer door with a thoroughness born of much adventuring. He loosened a hanger that he wore at his side, and tied it by its belt as with a sword knot to his wrist. That had been the toilet de rigueur for the night among his former messmates, the pirates of the Antilles. In this array then, supine upon the bed, he confidently awaited developments. To keep himself awake he continued to agitate the mysterious character and conduct of Aquelarre. The events of the evening, since the ill-assorted three had left their ship together, all forced themselves into the question. This opened the road to a review of the whole voyage and the change it had wrought in his life. And that life—what turn would it take on the morrow? What result from the heart-probing of Lisalda? The singularity was that the more plausible he painted the future, the darker shaded the present, and the past, of his sweetheart. He felt it was an insult to her to question her about that past of which she had denied the recital. And yet he longed—and how he longed—to rise to her from his very bed to question her. And her relations with the cabalist—how long before the voyage she had served him Ataurresagasti never knew, but apart from that it was gall and wormwood to him that she should even have shared his state room at sea. The fancy forced itself upon the sailor that the cabalist—who saw through all things—had seen through her disguise. The more he turned over the reasons assigned by Lisalda for the cabalist never sleeping alone, the more unlikely it appeared that a prince of all the Magi, and tamer of the Demon of the Ring, should show a side so puny. In spite of his better self there forced itself upon him another, and quite opposite, picture of the nights that these two had passed together. Yet why (and here for a moment he threw off that thraldom) yet why had Lisalda, this particular evening, apparently willingly exchanged with him the place, which by that hateful theory she should have found a pleasance. Again wider issues loomed in every direction, until he returned again bewildered to what seemed willy-nilly his keynote for that night. He tossed from side to side. Picture after picture stood out before his mind's eye, until he even reached the length of fancying Lisalda at that moment on the other side with the cabalist, while Ataurresagasti on his side lay befooled. That she could not have got there by any human means was a difficulty which did not even occur to him for solution. The sweat stood out thick upon his brow. He positively saw Lisalda twined about the body of his rival. His hair (he felt it) was turning grey. He saw the cabalist (a wonder of satiety) remove that ring of rings from his finger and fit it jestingly upon hers. At this precise juncture of his nightmare, Ataurresagasti suddenly started broad awake to his feet. Dream or no dream—whatever the rest of the night had been—there was certainly now something awful in progress in the adjoining apartment. Something (which he instinctively felt was not human) was struggling for life and death with the luckless cabalist. The hair of the sailor stood on end. There was no mistake about it this time. Time had been when he fancied he felt fear, but he knew now that only at this moment had he learnt its kind. All at once a most terrible shriek rang out through every corner of the house. Ataurresagasti dashed the partition into splinters with a blow that would have shattered steel. He leaped into the room just in time to arrest the escape of some huge incredible beast, that stood sullenly at bay, in the strangling streak of dawn. The mystery was solved. Down came the hanger with an impulse so irresistible that it sheared off a whole limb of the accursed one. The point of the hanger actually penetrated so deeply into the flooring that it was a moment of anxiety (during which his quarry, although maimed, might have bested him) before Ataurresagasti succeeded in getting it out again. But when he had recovered it, the animal had disappeared, impossible to find out how or where. This alone he saw in the imperfect light (or rather in the imperfect darkness) that the whole room was scattered from end to end with blood and bones and brain, which was all that was left of that most unhappy man.

A sickness came upon the victor. He mopped his dripping forehead. He turned to leave the presence-chamber of death and doom; he picked up as he did so the severed limb, a casual glance at which confirmed his general impression that the gaunt game had been but a particularly large and loathly wolf, such as occasionally penetrated the precincts of towns in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees. Ataurresagasti walked down straight into the reception room of the night before. For the moment the possible alarm of Lisalda at that terrible shriek of dissolution of the cabalist had not even entered his mind. His object was to summon Aquelarre. To his surprise he found him crouching there already white as a ghost apparently with fear. He sprang to his feet at sight of the sailor, and barely suppressed a cry. This time it was the sailor that read, and the landlord's face that provided reading matter. Amazement was writ legibly in every line of it, and his eyes were opened to the size of saucers. And Ataurresagasti asked himself, without finding answer, what connexion all this had with the attempt to drug him, which he had discovered the preceding evening. The two men stared at one another for some minutes without finding speech, of which indeed the innkeeper, at any rate, seemed incapable. The word when taken up was taken up by Ataurresagasti.

"My pharmaceutical friend seems somewhat upset by my early appearance after draining the drowsy cup which he compounded for me overnight."

"And it is not natural that a landlord should be fearful for his slate when he sees an uncancelled score slinking downstairs to the outlet at such unearthly hour?"

"Alas, for your slate (if that touch you so nearly) a fiscal fleeter than yourself has attended here this night, and collected your other lodger's scot."

"What means this matin pleasantry? How goes it with the cabalist?"

"Well, I hope, although I dare not think it well. His reckoning, I fear, will overreach him."

"Is he dead?"

"As much of him as can still be traced is unquestionably dead."

"That then undid my beauty sleep. I thought I dreamed an unforgetful shriek."

"'Twas murder mouthed it. God rest his soul, that died in such a case as he was overtaken in."

"He died, you say, by the hand of God?"

"I say by the limb of a wolf, rather, which I arriving overdue did incontinently lop from its trunk. The felon then evading by exit to me invisible, I descended hither by what impulse I scarcely know save that my intentions tended justiceward."

"You meant perchance to summon authority to certify to cause of death. But this must be looked to by myself before anyone else is admitted. What became of the piece of conviction?"

"Behold it!"

"Out upon you! What providence have we here! O perjured windpipe you are most miraculously self-accused by this mischosen joint! Limb of a wolf did you dare to say? Nay, behold assassin, to your confusion, 'tis the disjointed member of your master that you have brought away with you from the presence chamber."

A cry of horror burst from the palsied lips of the sailor. It was as Aquelarre stated. Not the hacked-off trophy of his prowess had he carried in his hand; by some inexplicable equivocation it was the sundered fist of the cabalist still bearing the ring of the familiar. Chilled to the marrow by the ghastly riddle Ataurresagasti stammered some broken of explanation; but the landlord cut him short.

"Hold your peace, rogue (and fool as much as rogue), you have miscast your account if you think to cope in a game of brag with a man of the world like Aquelarre. You do but squander breath which you may want ere long when the hangman ties your cravat. 'Twas then the bauble on yonder finger whose fatuous fire lured you into slippery sin—I misfancied even yesternight your gallows visage, that will ere long grin through a halter: 'twill clog my conscience till the day I die that I whispered no warning to that gentle sage. But by these five bones! I will lay no second blood to my debit. Rather than see a gallant (if misguided) boy turn rope-dancer I will hold the nose of correction from your trail. But think not that I shall also permit you to lay that flattering booty to your soul—you must make over to me the gaud that cozened you to crime. Indeed, if I left it in your possession, you would never dare to look a clothes-line in the face. Whereas, never doubt but that I shall make the best possible use of it, such as I have no time to bethink myself of at the moment. Masses (perchance) for the soul of its late owner done to death unofficed by Holy Church. Whatever he would have liked to do for me had I been slain, and he Aquelarre. Oh, I can promise you a binding promise of that. But we palter out the time of opportunity. Your safety lies in instant flight. The Bidassoa lies within easy avail. Take the bridge that throws over it at Behobia. Once on the Spanish side of the river, the hemp is not sown that shall throttle you. For this crime at any rate, I remaining shall run the risk, if risk there be to run. Quick then with the gewgaw—'tis a dull stone at best—why do you hesitate when the path divides before you? One way leads to length of life, the other is a short cut to cordage."

"You son of a burnt witch! The broom-ridden hag that taught you to spell out the Devil's books, and to find fortunes in hands—past, present, and future forsooth—she taught you all askew. I have done no such deeds as your second sight credits me with. The matter squared precisely with my account of it, but I am fortune's fool, and in change for my own handiwork I took hold (I know not how) of this Hand of Glory. In view of the public opinion that whispers you a wizard I should not exclaim over and above if it turned out to be your own hocus pocus that brought about the barter. Nay, it is possible and even probable that the wolf was but a go-between, guided by a hand not a hundred miles from here (and I spit upon mine that grasped it in friendship yester-even) but you are seemingly only an understrapper in the Devil's workshop since you cut only yourself with your unnecessary tool. We did not do these things by deputy upon the Spanish Main. Viewed in the light of your press for the possession of the ring (of whose virtues you apparently believe me to be ignorant) the riddle of last night's sleeping draught need not long remain unread. That after stripping you to this nakedness I should clothe you with the purple and fine linen of the ring would be too much for any but yourself to expect."

"Cry you mercy! You have signed your own death-warrant. What you cast in my teeth is guess-work. But you are rivetted hand and foot to the matter of fact. Pass me the ring and you go free—refuse, and you shall play the pendulum."

"And would you play the gatesman? Odds my life, and do you think I dare not go free until Aquelarre lifts the latch? Deputy devil, look to yourself!"

Aquelarre placed his back to the door. The buccaneer swooped down upon him with a yell that split the throat of echo. With all his force he struck him in the face with the abominable relic of the cabalist. The effect was electric. Aquelarre threw up his arms, and fell like a log dumb and blind to the ground. The buccaneer wrenched open the door and disappeared down one of the Four Cross Roads.

(End of Part I.)

PART II. THE DEVIL'S ATTORNEY.

The dial had sweat twelve hours of day ere we resume the broken thread of our story. At the sign of the Four Cross Roads (whether accident or design) matters stood in some such case as when we opened our first part. The cabalist having paid the debt which he had owed so lightly and so long, the ring now graced the little finger of the sailor. The inscrutable door strained under his muscular fist, that this time summoned passage. It opened, and again, with startling abruptness, Ataurresagasti crossed the fateful lintel. The door (which apparently worked of itself) flew back with a horrid, ominous jar. Aquelarre stood with his arms crossed in an attitude of expectation. Sailor and sorcerer took stock of one another from head to foot. But when the latter caught sight of the ring, he burst (as if inspired) into speech.

"So you have returned upon your tracks; I foresaw you would, and have awaited you. You remembered, when in safety yonder side of the frontier, that you had left a jewel in danger behind, outweighing that you wear. Desire came uppermost in the throw with fear."

"You man of second sight, is she still here,—since you know it is a she I seek?"

"You set me a painful task (my friend and admirer), if you are so ignorant of all that has happened during your somewhat protracted constitutional as to require the rigmarole of it from me. However, since you already doubtless know (and at any rate I care not to conceal from you) that I am the official representative in Labourt of a certain proud and damned Prince, you doubtless look to me as to the fountain head. So be it then, and to the task. But you did a black day's work as ever you did under the Black Flag, when you saved your hide this morning at the expense of your mistress's skin. Nay, hear me out. I know that you were shaken out of all self. But you had scarcely kicked my dust from off your feet, when the officers of justice, whom you so churlishly evaded had plucked me by the beard. The swan song of him from whom you filched that ring had pierced the universal ear. That murder had deflowered the bed you wot of, the constables had no room to doubt. Indeed, your Carib fashion of piece-mealing a victim put them to the unsavoury task of making out an inventory of the deceased. My own good fame being above suspicion, it fell from the first upon Lisalda, unearthed and laid willy nilly by the heels. Her sex (another item of distrust about her) was of necessity discovered in the Torture Chamber."

"The Torture Chamber!"

"Aye, the Torture Chamber. You saved your four limbs. She will never use again one of her arms, that was crippled in their grips of hellish engines. The surgeon (save the mark) pronounced that she could bear no more to-day. To-morrow they practice upon the other arm. And after that there will be enough of her sweet body to feed their tools a week."

"But she is innocent—my God, how innocent—and I, who begin almost to believe that I am guilty, will surrender at once in her place."

"Small good (my untutored friend), save the melancholy satisfaction of pressing the same rack with her. The Parliament of Bordeaux never let slip a single victim, nor is it any longer merely the indictment for the murder of the Cabalist that piles the faggots for her. You are a babe and suckling in these horrors. I am prematurely grey with them. Had you but seen (as I have) the mother burnt with the child at her breast—the loving pair chilled at the same stake—the friendship of years dissolved in smoke, but enough—to get out of the Torture Chamber (as you should readily guess) the corpus vile reduced to a crushed craze will sign any depositions that may be held out as a bait. The consequence is that your girl has already avowed her identity with a desperate, long-sought-for witch and sacristan to one of the most noted of our Black Priests. So much for the wringing of one set of nerves. To what may they not confess her before they have writhed her into a bag of quivering pulp?"

"Enough, enough, enough, can nothing be done to save her? O, you whom all this persecution has left upright (and a refuge as men whisper to the threatened) from whatever source your commission comes, I wrap about me the hem of your mantle. Be your aid of God, or Devil, I invoke it!"

"Do you know what you ask? The Indians of Darian are charity, compared to me and mine. Be my aid of God, or Devil do you say? You shall rest in no doubt upon that head. The bare mention of the name of God is a source of danger among us of the opposition, save when we take it (for our own purposes) in vain. And of the opposition I have been, am, and shall be. That with which surmise is rife be here with certainty known to you! You treat with one having authority deputed from the Most High, the Prince of this World and of Hell."

"I have never shrunk from any, save one woman, and I do not shrink from you. In all this storm you are my sheet anchor."

"Then in my character of the Devil's proxy I offer you your heart's ease in tender for your soul!"

"In the event of my agreeing to your proposition how do you set to work to save her?"

"By the substitution for her of a golem, a device that I learnt from a Rabbi of Provence that was my teacher in the art of cabala. It is a doll of wax (or indeed of any substance), no matter how uncouth, and upon the forehead of which in angelical letters one writes a chosen name—in your case the name Lisalda—I shall then conjure for you in a strong circle. You will clinch the bargain with my master in person by striking hands with him. And his claw will leave you for your lifetime branded with his private brand. This done he will breathe upon the golem. Obedient to the breath of life it starts (to all outward appearance) into a perfect double of the person in whose name it may have been inscribed. In your case the name Lisalda. Nor will you yourself be able to tell whether Lisalda or the devil's coin stands before you. You will forgive my suggesting that in some respects you might be better off with the ideal than the real, since it starts in life (like a child) with a clear slate and you may teach it in what sort you will."

"How now! Do you libel my love?"

"I speak but as a man of the world and to some extent of the next world also. However, to resume our ways and means. My Prince having bestowed upon the golem such life as it is only his and God's to give, I then smuggle the innocent know-nothing into the prison of your Lisalda and carry off Lisalda in exchange. Then to horse and hey for love and leisure—on the further side of the Bidassoa; but the cheat will never be discovered, and in fine and in finish the golem will run to ash like so many of her betters."

"Is there no other way?"

"There is no other way. Bethink yourself. The offer is there to take it or leave it. Shake hands with my Master or shake your fist at him. Be one of us or one of her executioners."

"I cannot boggle long at that. Death of my soul! Have with you then Aquelarre and let fruition crowd the heels of haste."

"There is yet one thing that you may boggle at. You have ratified the bargain with my Master but not the fee of my procuracy. You cannot do anything without me and I cannot do anything without that Ring which you wear upon your finger as my handsel."

"Your fee is a fleabite to your Master's. The ring I wear is yours but not as earnest money. I pass it over to you only after service rendered. And now lead on to this golem you speak of."

"Be it as you say. The preliminaries being all settled between the high contracting parties, I usher you to the actual presence of my principal."

As he thus concluded the negotiation a covetous light (like to nothing in heaven or earth) shot through the lashes of the devil's attorney. He stood at last upon the brink of attainment of that Ring so thirstily craved. With an imperious gesture he summoned the sailor to follow him and turned off behind the staircase. Directly the sorcerer's back was turned Ataurresagasti could not forbear a broad grin. He had outwitted (at any rate he thought so) both the infernal furious spirit and his attorney. And first as to the latter. The fact was that the only ring worn by the sailor himself, and pledged to Aquelarre by the letter of the bond, was a tawdry hoop of silver. The Ring that contained the familiar had never left the dead man's hand. How then had the inn-keeper imagined otherwise? Simply because the sailor, with a view to better protection, had drawn up his right arm within his sleeve and held the Hand of Glory by the wrist in such a position as to appear his own. The Ring which thus appeared to adorn the sailor's little finger was in reality still upon that of its architect. And, therefore, it was still unpawned to Aquelarre. But this was not the only or even the first fruits of the trick which Ataurresagasti (or his good angel) had set in motion. As he gathered from the sorcerer that the devil would imprint his private mark upon him by means of a grip of hands, Ataurresagasti (or, again, his good angel) jumped at once to the obvious deduction that by going through with the same sleight of hand, Beelzebub would come claw to claw with only the dead Cabalist and earn no soul but his.

Earn no Soul but his, which was undoubtedly already long-earned and already in heats of hell. Thus, by a single piece of hugger-mugger, the buccaneer hoped to go free with his sweetheart and do no harm to anyone. Or, at any rate, to anyone that stood within the reach of harm, the only sufferers being the devil and his lost. How the whirligig of time brought round its revenges the sequel of this story will show. Now that the reader is conversant with what was passing through the mind of the sailor we must return to where we left him at the back of the staircase. Aquelarre, stooping down, by some device which the sailor did not fathom, raised one of the stone slabs of the flooring from its place. This impromptu trap-door disclosed a flight of steps that fell down into absolute darkness. A motion from the landlord and Ataurresagasti fearlessly stalked down them to some distance, where he stopped until he had seen his confederate also enter. Aquelarre drew down the trap-door after him. This last action was fatal, of course, to such light as had previously washed the upper part of the stairs. All was now equal night. Yet the buccaneer continued his descent. The steps seemed endless. At last he stopped. He listened. To his surprise and horror no footfall sounded above. What had become of Aquelarre? The sailor suspected some deception put upon him. He retraced his steps as quickly as was possible under the difficult circumstances of the ascent. That he reached the top was made apparent to him by the crash of his head against the stone. He reeled and all but fell. What had become of Aquelarre? Recovering himself he tried with all his might to obtain egress but not unnaturally without avail. He mopped his brow and tried to think. Escape being impossible in this direction he decided to recommence the descent; come what might he could be no worse off than where he was even if he went down, down, down to the earth's centre. He tried to persuade himself that worse things happen at sea, but his heart of hearts nailed the lie. Down, down, down! He counted (as he thought) a thousand steps but not without dizzy doubts. And then he lost all count—all doubt—all but damned certainty. He had never been sick at sea but now—and then suddenly he staggered against some obstacle. It yielded. It was a door. Firelight danced in his eyes. He rolled into a corner and stood up against a wall. He was in an underground chamber and before him was Aquelarre. How the devil's advocate had got there before him who can tell? Doubtless in some devil's way. Aquelarre made no remark upon the sailor's entrance nor ceased from his work of drawing (on the ground) circle within circle, distant from one another about a hand's-breadth. The sailor rubbed his eyes and looked about him. The space (at one end of the vault) reserved for the circles was scrupulously clean, as well it might be, since one speck of pollution would have nullified their every virtue. The rest of the subterrane was a hotchpotch of horrors—the disjecta membra of a magical laboratory scattered broadcast over every inch of the floor. Here were receptacles of unsightly shapes, crucible and cucurbit, alembic and aludel. Here were the spoils of charnel-house and churchyard, ear and eye, excrement and entrail. Here squat phials bore charges of price, poison and philtre, lac virginis, and elixir vitae. In one corner gibbered a gigantic skeleton. In another lay a Jacob's Staff and a Pentacle of Solomon. In a third heaped up musty vellums, presumably occult; and of these last Ataurresagasti picked up one, and was about to open it at random, when Aquelarre turned suddenly white, and fetched a roar so sudden that the startled sailor dropped it as if it burnt him. The magician (who had just finished inscribing his series of circles) came forward with a brow of night. His fist was clenched as if to strike. But after glaring some moments at the buccaneer, he twisted his nails out of his palm again where they left four bleeding scars. He calmed down still farther before he could speak.

"Madman let this teach you never more to tamper with such wild-fire as a magic book. There are spells on every page of that volume which (had you exposed even one of them to the air) would have dissolved us both into death and hell. It is easy to see that this is your maiden bout as sidesman to an exorcist. Were you an ordinary neophyte, even your failure to play Paul Pry, would have quenched you the light of day. But take heart of grace and fear nothing mortal, for on your life great issues hang. But lest you should make another slip (and perchance to perdition) mark well what I am now about to teach you. And firstly to instal our golem—yonder it hangs in the fourth corner of the vault, suspended and swinging above our heads. You ask me why it so suspends and swings. I will tell you. Look at its forehead and you will see a name, which if you could read our angelical letters you would find to be the name of De Lancre, of the Parliament of Bordeaux. De Lancre, that is the torturer of our wizardry and of your bride, and the touchwood of a thousand fires that depopulate Labourt. But his turn shall yet be served. By the sympathy which I have established between this mannikin and him (by only the sealing of it with his name) I have got into my hands more power over his body than your untortured fancy would conceive. I could even bring his life to a close at this very second, by piercing his heart with a pin. But at the moment I am content by this swinging between earth and sky (as they say swings Mahomet's coffin) to afflict him with horrors, to which death were meat and drink,—to afflict him with dizziness, vertigo, and whirlpool, with falling sickness and ceaseless belching, yea, to the innermost membrane of his soul. But that your need of this lay figure is greater than his, he should sleep never a wink to-night. Nay, not all the drowsy drinks of the Herbal should gum his eyelids up. But behold I release him and lean him against this wall, and erase his name with my finger. 'Tis done, and De Lancre at the very instant far away is restored to perfect health. Some charlatan will doubtless get the credit for a cure."

He broke into a peal of horrible laughter. But the sailor scarcely heeded. He was gazing at the figure which he understood was to be transformed with a blasphemous breath into an exact simulacrum of his betrothed. A greater difference than at present existed between the two could scarcely be imagined. Lisalda was—well we will not attempt the impossible task of reproducing a lover's raptures. The golem was a rude lump of modelling wax with five projections, occupying respectively such parts of the main body as suggested that they were meant for its legs, arms, and head. The last distinguished itself from the four limbs by several additional clues to its identity. It had eyes indicated by a couple of stones. It had ears, or, at any rate, handles, on either side, and a third in front for nose. It had a mouth which left even more to the imagination, since its hieroglyphic was a herring bone. Lastly, it was thatched (somewhat scantily, it must be confessed), with what appeared to be the bristles of a hog. With a view no doubt to decency, the devil's attorney tied a rag about its middle. Another about its right arm he explained as representing the prison bandages which swathed the tortured limb of the real Lisalda. Finally, he inscribed upon its brow a name, and declared it to be complete. And now for a lesson in ceremonial magic. Seven circles Aquelarre had compassed, waxing smaller and smaller within each other. In the innermost (which is where the two daring exorcists should stand) the devil's advocate placed a pan of coals, the same that had hitherto only given light to the room, but of which the real use and purpose was suffumigation. This suffumigation was that part of the work which was to fall to the lot of Ataurresagasti. For this the landlord placed beside the pan various packets of perfumes each numbered in the order with which they were to feed the flames. And woe unto the exorcists, if in the flurry of even one second Ataurresagasti changed the order of succession. They had better have never been born! And now Aquelarre girt him with his magic sword and hung a pentacle about his neck. The time had come to pass the series of circles.

"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

Ataurresagasti assimilated himself to the guise of his companion. He entered the inmost circle. Aquelarre took once more his crayon and inserted within each circle (one and all being yet in blank) a symbol illegible to the sailor, but which the devil's advocate translated as he proceeded somewhat as follows:

"The name of the hour wherein you do the work, the name of the angel of the hour, the seal of the angel of the hour, the name of the angel that rules the day in which you work and the names of his ministers, the name of the present time, the names of the spirits ruling in that part of time and their presidents, the name of the head of the sign ruling in that time."

This done all appeared to be in order and the exorcism forthwith commenced. Aquelarre commanded the sailor to cast the first packet upon the flames ("and unwrap it not lest it skin thy hand"); the which being done the former brightness of the light burns directly a hideous red of leaping blood and every object in the room tinges to match. The magician draws his sword and makes passes with it in his right hand. He places his left upon the pentacle on his breast and commences in the following strain:—

"In the name of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity proceed we to work in these mysteries to accomplish that which we desire. We, therefore, in the name aforesaid, consecrate this piece of ground for our defence, so that no spirit whatsoever shall be able to break these boundaries, neither be able to cause injury, nor detriment to either of us here assembled. But that he may be compelled to stand before this circle and answer truly on demand, so far as it pleaseth Him who liveth for ever and ever, and who says I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, which is and which was, and which is to come—the Almighty. I am the first and the last who am living and was dead, and, behold! I live for ever and ever, and I have the keys of death and hell. Bless, O Lord, this creature of earth wherein we stand. Confirm, O God, thy strength in us so that neither the adversary nor any evil thing may cause us to fail."

The chant of the magus grows shriller and shriller, till it thins into a final continuous shriek. And there mingles with it thunder, and the re-echoed echo of shriek and thunder, to the splitting of ear and brain. And the earth rocks until there remains no longer floor nor roof, but sometimes one was uppermost and sometimes the other, and only the rapidity of the motion makes it possible to keep place in the circle. Thus, alternately, the venturous pair stood erect or head downwards. In this part of the ordeal, however, the sailor's professional habit stands his friend in need; but his teeth were twisted out of rank by clenching, to avoid a cry. The fire (now yellow) burns foul in the nose and hangs upon the hair in folds of smoke. Ceaseless lightnings lash the streaming eye. Clothed as it were, in those folds of smoke, there gradually appears to incorporate itself a large, full, and gross body—sanguine and gross—in a gold colour, with the tincture of blood; its motion is like the lightnings of heaven; the sign of its becoming visible is that it moves the person to sweat that calls it; the sorcerer becomes mute before the majesty of that presence and the thunder is hushed in its breath. There creeps a claw from out the draping clouds and steals towards the right hand of the sailor—say the right hand of the Cabalist rather, for it is that which the sailor clasps fearlessly to the arch fiend's itching grip. A second's compress—a grit of bone against bone—a hiss, as of a branding iron, and the talon is withdrawn. The sailor gazes appalled for a moment at the blackening, indelible sign manual, now seared upon the palm of the Cabalist. His heart of hearts sings a pean of victory over a lie palmed off upon even the Father of lies. The blowing of the Fiend now falls upon the golem and a gradual inflation swells out that pitiful suggestion into full and female form. Eyes like orbs of night light the vault and outburn the yellow jealousy of the brazier. Ears like seashells, and teeth like pearls of the sea, hair that paragons Godiva. O God, and is this but a counterfeit that can so kindle our sailor's senses? But he is recalled to gruff reality by the sight of her prison dress and bleeding bandaged arm. He is about to step out of the circle when a buffet from his companion fells him like an ox to the ground, scattering splashes of yellow flame in his fall. The magician indicates by signs rather than words, that the devil called up has yet to be laid before either of the callers can venture forth with safety. And then Aquelarre proceeds with full strength of lung (lest haply further risk betide) to recite the accepted form of dismissal.

"Go in peace unto your place. Peace be between us and you. Be you ready to come when you are called."

Ataurresagasti awakened to his sense of duty, sacrifices yet another packet of incense. Blue of heaven burns the flame, and sweet the savour that (after a struggle) overpowers its predecessor. The Prince of fallen pride dissolves into fulgurant reek. Earth recovers its footing. The fire at last resumes its work-a-day tone. Nothing but a grateful suspicion of the incense still about the convalescent air remains to betray what manner of work has been done. And now with assurance the exorcists may leave their circle. Aquelarre cannot forbear to bring home to his sidesman the gravity of that false step he nearly made.

"Should your stars ever fate you again to dally with infernal fire, be never tempted to leave your circle until the spirit is dismissed; nay, even when the spirit refuses to appear at your call you must still formally dismiss him according to the rules of art, lest haply he be actually present (though to you invisible) with intent to pluck your soul."

"'Tis a lesson I shall never need to learn again."

"But now to the next step in our progress. From the opposite end of this vault to that by which you entered there is a subway to the condemned cell. Many a time and oft has this been useful to me before, for you need not plume yourself the first that has self-sacrificed upon the altar of his love. Parent or child—lover or spouse—have employed me as middleman over and over again. My memory teems triumphant with case after case where the burners, unknowingly have burnt but the shadow of a witch. And so shall it be again. I take the golem with me and rejoin you with your prize."

He touched a spring in the opposite wall which threw open the indicated door. The bottom of a flight of steps appeared, the pendant of that which the sailor had descended. Aquelarre took the apparently bewildered golem by the hand and with her disappeared. The door closed with a vicious snap. The sailor was left alone in a chamber hermetically sealed and Heaven knows how far beneath the foundation of the tavern of the Four Cross Roads. There were none of mortal kind around save bones of unshriven suicides who dreamed of judgment and woke up shrieking that they made the blood of youth run cold to hear them. These were his brothers in exile. He was fain to shout aloud, that corner to re-echoing corner of the vault might make him colloquy. But was this jangled terror his that they groaned into his ears? Was this the note to which the lung of storm gave precedence in happier days upon the sea? How long this weird conversation lasted the sailor never knew. At length his straining ear caught the footfall which he had dared so much to hear again. To snatch Lisalda into his arms as she entered, to feel that she yielded to his embrace was breath and blood to our hero. But the devil's attorney touched him on the shoulder. He pointed sternly to the other door that led again to the inn. In Indian file (there was room for but one on a step) all three commenced the ascent. How quickly it sped compared with that well remembered descent. But the sailor found time to hide in his waistband the Cabalist's branded hand. When they reached their wonted level Aquelarre closed the trap, and throwing open the door of the street disclosed (he did not do things by halves) a fully caparisoned horse waiting outside. His whole face brightened into a smile of supreme content with himself and (for the nonce) all the world. His work was done. He held out his hand for the payment. The sailor did not smile. He took the silver ring ostentatiously from his little finger and placed it upon that of the devil's attorney. The face of Aquelarre underwent a very sudden change.

"Gates and gulfs of Hell! Do you realise with whom it is you jest?"

"Jest do you say? It is sober, serious, earnest."

"What the devil's name! You pledged me the ring you wear on your finger."

"I pledged it to you and I have passed it you—the only ring I ever wore—but if you refer to the Ring of the demon, that has never left the dead man's hand since for its sake you left him dead."

Before Aquelarre could recover from his stupefaction at this thunderbolt, Ataurresagasti swept Lisalda into the crupper and sprang to the saddle in front of her. And then loose rein and bloody heel, they dashed down one of the cross roads from which the tavern derived its name. Ride, ride, ride. Dark though the way and cold the wind, Ataurresagasti rolls a name upon his tongue that lights the path and warms the ambient air. Lisalda! Lisalda! Lisalda! Shock snowy polls of Pyrenean hills start up behind the haze. The lights of Behobia star the drift. Its cobbles fly to sparks beneath the horse's hoofs. The river cuts athwart the highway; the bridge is reached. Another stride and the fleur de lys is left behind for good. A customs officer leaps out of his box and seizes the horse's head; he is dragged several yards along the track. A torrent of imprecations in Basque, French and Spanish. Ataurresagasti pulls his mount back on to its haunches. The officer is ultimately convinced that he is no smuggler, and relinquishes somewhat charily his prey; Ataurresagasti winds gently along the bank. When beyond the range of pry or spy he dismounted and swung Lisalda to the ground. Once in his arms he did not readily let her go but showered kiss after kiss. The horse unheeded proceeded to explore on his own account and soon was lost to sight. Ataurresagasti showered kiss after kiss upon her wounded arm, her neck, her mouth, her eyes, her brow; but what is this—his lips are blistered in contact with the hair that shades that brow; he pushes the hair aside. A name in fiery angelical characters is flaring there. Horror of horrors, 'tis the golem! In his far off tavern Aquelarre is laughing in his sleeve. Ataurresagasti stands aghast. The creature regards him with puzzled eyes. She does not understand this sudden change; her mouth smiles and the first word she has ever uttered crosses her lips. It is her own name picked up, parrot-like from the iteration of the sailor. It had a different effect from what the poor thing expected.

"Lisalda!"

His cry of agony jarred her dulcet note. Every cord of his body was strung in an instant to one thought. To destroy this soulless creature—to annihilate—to erase her—to have her from God's earth. He pounced upon her. But the poor pretty monster seemed to feel by instinct that this was another guess embrace from the first ardent one. And instinctively she wrestled with him. It was an awful unheard-of bout. Not a syllable was spoken, nor a cry. The blood now streamed like rain from her wounded arm. They slipped in the puddling soil. And Ataurresagasti could not get rid of the horrible idea that it was, after all, the real Lisalda that he was wiping out of life. Bit by bit, and one by one he obliterated the cursed characters. And bit by bit as the execution proceeded a horrible change came over her. Her limbs grew lean and spidery that she twisted about him. Her eyes grew dull and fishy. Her hair fell out by handfuls. She was dying letter meal. At length he forced her to his feet still clinging to his knees. The last figure of the angelical name disappeared beneath his thumb. Before him there lay no longer She but It. No longer a Lisalda, but a battered waxen doll with two pebbles and a herring-bone clapped on to one side of its head to distinguish front from back. Laughable—yes, perhaps—but Ataurresagasti did not laugh. He fell upon his face and wept. Something like an hour passed before he rose. Then drawing his hanger, and selecting the greenest spot, he proceeded to dig a grave. This he lined with masses of such wild flowers as he could find, and then reverently disposed the golem upon them. He shovelled back the earth upon the body, as he could not help but call it. He stamped it down obliterating all traces of his handiwork. He had said no prayer, but prayers crowded into his mind. He seemed in his tangled consciousness to have buried the real Lisalda, and with her all his love. He drew towards the river and stared into its inscrutable depths, turning over in his mind the pro and con as touching suicide. But after mature deliberation he decided, in preference, to return to that officer at Behobia, and give himself up for wife murder. He took a gloomy pleasure in this idea, and might even have carried it through. But suddenly a mocking peal of laughter—fiendish laughter—struck, as he thought, familiarly on his ears. He rubbed his eyes and looked across the river. On the French side of the boundary stream, there stood facing him the devil's attorney, hand in hand with what the now crazed sailor took for a golem. The existence in the world of a real Lisalda never occurred to his wandering wits. Aquelarre knew full well what had transpired. The sight of the discomfiture of his rival seemed balsam to his wounded self-esteem. Nor did he evidently as yet despair of making all things square. He addressed Ataurresagasti at first with real or assumed jocularity.

"Hola? master gaff topsail, and have you found the truth of what I once told you, that two can play in a game of brag? Come, we are surely quits by this time. Let bygones be bygones, and let us adjust our contra accounts. You hold on your side what is of value to me, and I on my side what is of value to you. Exchange is no robbery. Cast me the Ring across the stream, and Lisalda shall join you at Behobia."

"Lisalda, do you say? And do you really think to befool me with a golem, in the making of which I myself had a hand? Lisalda, I know, is dead. By this hand she died, and I would cut it from me were it not that the bloody crust on it is the only relic of her that remains to me."

"Madman, you rave! Oh this I never dreamed of, that his reason should wander so untimely. Pull yourself together, man. 'Tis no golem that stands beside me. 'Tis your own Lisalda,—your cutest medicine—could I but get you to take it. Oh, be but for an hour sane, and then put eternity out of joint if you will! Again I say, the Ring across the stream, and take Lisalda in exchange; that turns the scale against your immortal soul!"

"Never waste your lies on me, man! 'Tis nothing but a golem that you seek to palm off upon me. Lisalda, I know too well, is dead,—by the token that these same impious hands that snatched her into darkness have just smothered her into a heathen grave. I had thought to have bedded her in other guise, but it seems my fondest star had never appraised me as so worthy. Take away your golem, and I shall keep the devil's autograph."

"Perdition be your speed! This passes patience. All is indeed at an end between us. All save my vengeance. For I will tell you now a secret that shall open your eyes to the imminent deadly breach between us. This Lisalda (whose name you would add to the long list already tattooed upon your hairy bosom) has not, does not, nor will ever love any other but myself. Sacristan at my Sabbaths from her earliest years—my living altar at the Black Mass—she is more to me than all your Ring. Nay the very plot and plan for conveying that Ring from its rightful owner was conceived and carried out by her. For that she undertook a special trip to the New World; for that she donned the disguise in which she wormed herself into the confidence of the Cabalist, and ultimately persuaded him to visit me at the Four Cross Roads. Unfortunately (you gentleman swab) you took it into your cursed costard to see further into a millstone than other people. We tried to make account of your sea-dogged persistency by drugging your nightcap with a view to palm you off upon justice (save the mark) as the murderer of the Cabalist. But again, through your ferreting foresight (darkened be your eyes), you tripped upon the tragedy in the worst possible moment (trust you for that), and even blundered into possession of the Ring. And now keep your ill-gotten gear, and Aquelarre for the first time in life is content to be bought and sold."

He broke off abruptly as if unable to contain himself, and throwing himself upon the girl with ferocious ardour he covered all her face with kisses. Kisses that absolutely foamed at the mouth. Kisses which she with even greater abandonment returned. Ataurresagasti caught fire at the sight (as mayhap it was intended with devilish cunning that he should) and cried out across the stream, every muscle of his face quivering with jealousy.

"This is the stroke that beggars fate! All is indeed at an end between us! Bought and sold! Ataurresagasti is bought and sold! But I can touch you in what (in spite of all you say) I know is still a raw. The devil bless you, and thus to the devil with demon and ring!"

"Stop, stop, stop! 'Tis no hand of the Cabalist upon which the ring sparkles but the hand of his murderess whom you love! Through you in your ignorance it was branded with the brand of Beelzebub, and if you relinquish it her soul will be struck from her!"

He crowded the words together incredibly in his eagerness, but yet he was too late. The Hand of Glory now acknowledged to be hand of Lisalda, had already left the sailor's touch. It flew through the air and as it flew, shot a double lightning of great joy. For the Demon (so long imprisoned within the crystal) knew at length that his appointed hour was come. Too late, the sailor grasped the stupendous revelation of Aquelarre. Too late, he recognised Lisalda in the supposed golem, and in Lisalda the murderess, whose shorn hand he had so long carried about him. The moment that he hurled it violently from him a startling change took place in the girl. Her garments became shaggy hair. Her glorious eyes narrow and slanting. Her teeth protruded at great length and yellow. Name of Mercy! This was then that large and loathly wolf (a werewolf as he now astounded saw) that had scattered the life of the Cabalist. The huge incredible beast (with a mournful howl that curdled the sailor to the marrow) sprang desperately after the brand which bound her soul. But being short of one paw she failed to arrest it. The Hand of Glory crashed down upon the water with an impact that shivered its crystal setting. It burst with a flame and smoke, and a hellish explosion with which mingled the dying shriek of the werewolf. With a roar that made rock the whole Pyrenean chain, the demon thus set free had darted upon her! He shot up as it seemed through her very body in a column like a waterspout that seemed to pierce the skies. She was instantly riven into a million shreds and sprinkled in a red rain as far as eye could reach over the length and breadth of the stream.

THE RABBI LION.

The clock of the Jewish quarter of Prague moves in the opposite direction to its brethren of the Christian town, yet each in its own way arrives second by second at the same inexorable facts of time.

It was an hour short of midnight by both baptised and unbaptised reckoning—a misty rain was falling and mingled with the mist that rose from the river. Black obscure clouds veiled the face of the moon. Thunder roared at intervals. A flash of lightning that lifted momentarily the edge of the darkness revealed nothing kindlier than a gibbet. Dead bones that once had lived were creaking in its chains. The flesh had taken wing, the fowls of the air knew whither. Another flash showed a living man who crouched smothered up in a cloak at the foot of the unsightly tree. This unhappy outlaw if he dared seek no choicer shelter was, perhaps, even more to be pitied than his brother above. Whatever his reason, he made no motion in the direction of a light that shone afar and presaged warmth and shelter.

It was an inn. Its occupants concern us. They consisted of a company of half-a-dozen youths that had palpably imbibed both long and deep. Their carouse, however, was drawing to an end. The landlord hovered near cogitating over his bill, and yet with an ear to the conversation of his guests, lest haply he might catch some word. In this he was unsuccessful, and no wonder. The language they spoke was not only foreign to the landlord, but was that one of all others of which the angels themselves are traditionally supposed to be ignorant. In a word, it was Chaldee. But how did these youngsters come to speak in the secret language of Cabala? The reason is not far to seek. They were students of the Cabala and of magic under a Rabbi—one of the most esteemed of his time. The occasion they were celebrating with the flowing bowl was, indeed, no other than the conclusion of their seven years' apprenticeship. So far so good. But there was more in it than that. There was a death's head at their feast. Something that necessitated for its discussion their gift of tongues, something that took the heat from food and made the red wine show white through their skins. Upon entering their course they had set their hands in blood to the customary indentures of the magical schools of that period. After seven years (so the bond provided) only five of the pupils were to leave their Alma Mater their occult education complete; the sixth was forfeit to the devil, his due for acquiescence and assistance in their studies. A point on which the academies differed was the method of selecting among the apprentices which was to suffer as damned soul. Some held a kind of glorified race in which the runner that last attained the winning-post was torn asunder by the fiend. But the Rabbi who conducted the reading party in which we are interested had laughed at a decision made on physical grounds. The graduates should be chosen (he thought) not for fleetness of foot, but for the foremost quality of their sorcery. The scapegoat should similarly be thrown out not for unsoundness of wind or limb, but for the inadequate result of Black Art cramming. Logical enough all this. There remained but to discriminate between the competitors. To do this the Rabbi had decided that on the morrow of the night when our story opens he would hold a solemn incantation. It would be the first serious function of which the neophytes could boast. Their seven years' candidacy had been occupied with theory and had never ventured on practice. They would now find out the difference between knowing how to raise the devil and doing it. A difference which is even greater in this particular case than between word and deed in other arts and sciences. The idea of the Rabbi was that beginning gradually the terror should be accumulated ever thicker and faster until it reached a point where one of the men would break. This then would be the victim to be forced instantly from his circle and snatched soul from body by the enemy.

The reader is now cognizant of the mysterious business that fluttered these young hearts. We may add that their use of a dead language had another source besides the need for secrecy. No two of these ill-fated ones were natives of the same country, no two of them spoke a common speech. Such was the cosmopolitan fame of the Rabbi at whose feet they sat that he could pick his lads from Arctica to Cancer.

We have already remarked that the supper drew to an end. The six had tried their manfullest to drown care, but they had found it impossible to get rightly drunk in the shadow of Death and of Hell. With despair for their toastmaster they drank every time the health of five, and thought the more that they spoke no word of the eternal ruin of the sixth. The roofless wretch outside was less to be pitied than these. They had discussed without hope every loophole of escape and hopeless rejected all. There was nothing for it now but to return home. The Rabbi would never have allowed them out so late on any less momentous eve, but he had no fear of losing them now they had run out their course of lessons. He had done his part, they had received their consideration, trust him to look after his own that keeps the tally of the damned.

The reckoning had been adjusted to the satisfaction of the landlord, by the chairman of the feast. That youth (who was apparently a Bohemian by birth) now led his companions out of the house which some one of them was never to re-enter. And each turned back to look at it uncertain to what tune beggarly Fortune next might dance. They proceeded in the direction of the gallows we have already alluded to. Rain was still falling. The outlaw had disappeared, but will turn up later in our path. As they approached the grisly standard even the seasoned nerves of the sorcerers were troubled at the sight of its charge. They would have turned aside but for the Bohemian, who sturdily harangued them on their cowardice.

"The Devil walk arm in arm with you! Is this the way you stand to your guns at the sight of a gutted envelope—of a cast peascod—you that are due in but a few hours' space to outfront the root of all evil! I tell you the pit is digging deep for him that shows such favour then. But my liver is of another colour. What, fear a sloughed garment, and more rags than ribbons at that! Why I have only to set my hand to it"——

The incident ended in a manner entirely unforeseen. The Bohemian had barely touched the corpse when it dropped upon his shoulders. At this the other sorcerers shod with fear incontinently fled. The Bohemian stood his ground for only a moment. It had been in his mind that the thing would fall to pieces, but when he felt a burning breath, and the bony arms closing round his throat his brave soul shrunk like the kernel of a nut, and rattled against his sides. With the horrible revenant ever tightening its grasp the Bohemian started to flee. In doing this he followed in the footsteps of his companions, who had made their way back to the tavern. The landlord was in the act of putting up his shutters when his late guests tumultuously helter-skeltered to his door, and shrieked for immediate rations of strong waters. Nothing loath he planted them again at his tables and exchanged their solids for his fluids. At this juncture the Bohemian appeared, alone, but sweating to the very palms. He steadied himself against the wall and drank off the landlord's proffer at a gulp.

"Your health!" cried out a mocking voice from the very midst of the Convives.

The Bohemian dropped his glass with a crash that sowed its fragments wide. There was a stranger sitting in the midst of their company, and drinking as if one of themselves; no one had seen him enter. The host appeared as much at a loss as they were. But the unknown being obviously man of mortal mould the Bohemian soon recovered his wits. He challenged the unbidden guest.

"Who are you? And why do you drink to me?"

The stranger rose to his full height, which was more than common tall. We repeat that none of those present knew him; but to continue our practice of dealing fairly with the reader we identify him with the outlaw with whom we commenced our story huddled up at the feet of justice. This understood, we record the stranger's speech:—

"Walls have ears, and if you would know me you must breathe the outer air. As to my drinking of your health, between man and man, do you not look as if you needed it?"

The obvious truth of this remark was only fuel to the Bohemian's fire. The more anxious on that account to know who the mysterious one was, he signed to his companions to come outside. The rain had now ceased. As they retraced—not without trepidation—the path they had so hastily left, they noticed that the gibbet was again occupied, but no one dared to ask the Bohemian how he had got rid of his unwelcome visitant. It was the stranger who renewed the conversation by abruptly mentioning his name.

"I am Iron Haquin!"

His hearers started. They had expected nothing like this. It was a name proscribed, and upon which a heavy price was set. It was the name of the comrade (still at large)—of him that shook a leg on the gallows. But Iron Haquin knew that these men were nothing to be feared. The affair of the dead bandit had given them their fill—of thief-taking, at any rate—for that one night. The living might safely laugh them out of countenance about that exploit. He addressed himself accordingly to the Bohemian.

"What! frightened with the rattling of bones that ride the gale? Would have me believe that the unrepentant thief descended from the cross? A sorrow on your fears! Take such tales to your confessor, for I'll have none of them, be sure! You had looked too long upon the jewelled wine, and that's the long and the short of it. I'll even touch hands with my dead mate myself, just to show you how unfounded your stampede. You will see no windfall vouchsafed to me, shake I never so shrewdly the tree."

He suited the action to the word and the event proved him right. The sorcerers would have turned tail at half a suspicion. But never a miracle occurred this time. The corpse continued to hug its chains. The Bohemian waxed wilder and still more wild, but he did not cease to listen to Iron Haquin.

"Fear has no share in life of mine—death has been all too long my fellow—familiarity breeds contempt. I believe I could make the Devil's pulse jump could I only obtain an interview. That, at any rate, is the one thing left that might fathom the resources of my heart. I saved the life of a Hebrew once, who, in return, gave me lessons in magic. I never worked so hard in my life. I looked to shortly kiss the mouth of hell, but, as ill luck would have it, I quarrelled with my Rabbi, and never found a chance."

The Bohemian could scarcely help showing his incredulity, nor did he care much for the stranger's feelings.

"What possible cause of quarrel could you have with a man whose life you saved?"

"Cause enough for anything and everything since he introduced me to his betrothed and I fell in love with her. He poisoned her mind against me, and on a chance cast me into a well. The water, however, was sufficient to break my fall, and I escaped after starving many days. It was twenty years ago, but I have never been able to forget it. He shall yet curse the mother that bore him. I tell you all this frankly as I told you my name, because I know that you are not what you seem!"

The Bohemian followed this relation, and chewed the cud of it. An idea had occurred to him fraught with unholy joy. He saw (as he thought) how he could achieve his own salvation at one stroke with the death of the intruder. How it worked out we shall see in the sequel. This is how the Bohemian set it going.

"What do you mean by saying that we are not what we seem?"

"Because, although your outer man is clad in this world's uniform, your hearts are of the livery colours of hell; you are students of sorcery, and no later than to-morrow you are to conjure in your strength. Do I not read you rightly?"

The Bohemian stared in something very much like stupor. Where on earth could the man have got his information? It sealed his death warrant, in any event. He knew too much for sure! The Bohemian, by this time, had matured his plans, which he now expressed in words.

"Whatever your source of knowledge you have hit us off correctly, I admit; nor can we deny hospitality to such a man. We are within (as you say) a few hours of a magical ceremony. If you are so anxious as you pretend to face such odds I will go so far as to yield my place to you."

For the life of him the Bohemian could not help something of a smile as he made this handsome offer. He was ignorant still whether the bandit was aware of the exceptional nature of this incantation. His reply would decide that point. If he knew the rules of the approaching contest he would certainly refuse. If he did not, he could hardly maintain his fame without becoming a substitute for the Bohemian. To do him justice, Iron Haquin did not hesitate for a moment.

"Your hand upon the bargain, man, and never fear but I shall do you credit. Since the beginning of recorded time there shall have been no such conjuration. We will quench the light of adverse stars. Hell's idiom has no word for what we shall do."

Still wearing the same sardonic grin, the Bohemian broke in upon this enthusiasm. His department was the practical.

"Permit me to draw your attention to the fact that we have been drifting slowly on and shall soon have reached the Rabbi's house. It befits us, therefore, to arrange our order of business. It may not have occurred to you that the Rabbi must know nothing about this. If he did he might possibly veto the affair. But there will be no difficulty in circumventing him. The house is built square around a central court where the conjuration will take place in open air. You will enter with us muffled in your cloak, and your presence will not be detected among so many; you will conceal yourself under the staircase while the Rabbi takes us to our bedrooms, which are the topmost of the house. The old gentleman locks us in all night, for we are strictly looked after, I can assure you. When we are released (after a brief slumber) it will still be dark, and if I slip into your hiding-place and you assume my authority I do not see why the Rabbi should be the wiser. As to the risk you run that is, of course, more your affair than mine. I shall pray for you from my coign of vantage if I can remember any but backward prayers. But now, confess, are you not moved at length with fear?"

"Nay, by horn and hoof! I shall weather the devil as I have got the weather of death, and be hail-fellow-well-met with both! At the worst a man can die but once—I had rather thus than a prod and a sod like so many that I have sent to their account. And, to end all, is this your destination? Why, it is the house of Rabbi Lion!"

"The Rabbi Lion is our teacher."

The Bohemian was only too glad that the matter was thus settled. His fears for himself, and of the other, were disposed of in one ingenious coup. The remaining five sorcerers had followed the negotiations with mixed admiration and envy. From them no remonstrance was to be expected, quite the contrary, since they believed and hoped that the bandit as a novice in magical matters would be the one to pay penalty to the fiend. They had yet to find out that their dupe had more knowledge than they bargained for. Meanwhile the Bohemian has knocked at the door. From within there comes a clangour of bolt and bars. The door is opened, and the Rabbi appears. His pupils enter in as much of a hustle as possible, allowing Iron Haquin to conceal himself as arranged. The students file upstairs to be disposed of by their tutor, who will presently return alone.

During this absence of the Rabbi, Iron Haquin took by the forelock the opportunity of looking around. The courtyard itself was bare, the lofty walls of the house built it in on all four sides. Under the roof half-a-dozen windows seemed to indicate the garrets of as many students. On the level of the ground there was nothing but two doors to break the monotonous courses of stone. One of these massive portals was that of the street through which Iron Haquin had entered. The other, which faced it on the opposite side, had been left ajar by the Rabbi. It was of a certainty the passage way to his sanctum. The bandit approached it and looked through. A mighty chamber lay behind. The light which streamed from it into the courtyard was engendered by a central lamp, one of that sort which are traditionally reputed to burn with an everlasting flame; from the ceiling hung stuffed reptiles and other grotesques that seemed to shiver in the current of fresh air. Tables conveniently disposed for work were loaded with books and manuscripts; every available niche and nook was piled with tools of necromancy that the bandit had no time to identify. Hearing the steps of the Rabbi descending, he slipped to his covert just in time. The ancient Israelite re-entered his studio and slammed the door behind him. The wondrous light was thus extinguished, and the courtyard plunged in darkness. But not for long. The outlaw had scarcely disposed himself for sleep—better quarters this than the gibbet's foot—when the door was again thrown wide. He looked in the expectation of seeing once more the Rabbi's work-room; but to his utter surprise and consternation it was a different room altogether, though indisputably the self-same door. This time it was a lady's boudoir that was revealed, of immense size, imperially furnished—a thousand mirrors flashing back its chandeliers. There was no trace of the Rabbi who had just entered that very door, instead, a beautiful girl of about twenty summers glided out to the cooling breeze. Had it not been for her Iron Haquin would have been dumbfounded at the inexplicable shift of rooms. But the moment he set eyes on her so much greater a surprise beset him that it drove all other out of mind.

It was the woman of whom he had spoken to the Bohemian—the woman who had cut friendship, and all but wrought his death—the woman whom still he loved. He strode forth without a second thought.

"It is her very self!" he cried.

The girl smiled at him as in recognition. Not the least surprise did she show at this strange meeting. She called him by his name.

"Iron Haquin!"

"You know me after all these years?"

"Who better among men should I know after all that passed between us? And did you not first know me?"

"That is not the same thing. I am twenty years older, but you—I can hardly believe my eyes—are the girl of twenty years ago. Has time, too, been fooled by those eyes of yours which I have often said would split a lover's coffin?"

"Believe me, my friend, Time's ravages are here as surely as that you will never see them. It is your love now, as ever, that blinds your eyes and drapes a faded woman in your poetry. When I am dead, and my body an ordinary for worms, you will see me still in fancy's eye just the girl you see me now. And by the same token you, that speak of being twenty years older, are in my eyes the brave and innocent boy whose lips were once my food."

"Then you loved me all the time, after all?"

"At that age, what did I know of love—or loathing?"

"But the Rabbi?"

"He is old," she cried, "past passion. Ah, Haquin, you would not know him now!"

"I cannot make it out that you are still sweet and twenty. Here is a waist would warm the arm of death! You are, if anything, lovelier, transfigured, haloed. You would hurry the pace of a star! Tell me true now, is it not some elixir of the Rabbi's that has pinnacled you beyond the teeth of Time?"

She laughed.

"Elixir of his! Why he would swallow it himself! And to prove how little I lean on him you may kill him if you will!

"An assassination!" gasped the bandit, "the man knows no sword play."

He was thinking, as he spoke, of the primitive device by which his rival had once tried to get rid of him.

"A duel!" returned the Jewess, "for if he knows no sword play he can measure swords with steel they forge below. You are a tall man of your hands when knives are stripping, but at his trade you are the Rabbi's fool. You will need all you know to join issue with him in ceremonial of magic. No later than this morning must you pit your strength against him, for to that you were decoyed hither."

"Decoyed! I came of my own free will, for an adventure to my mind. The story is worth telling. I was dying for a sensation, so I decided to cut down a comrade and give him more decent sepulchre than a gizzard. I had just got his corpse in safety to the ground when I heard a confusion of coming footsteps. Fearing it might be noticed that the gibbet was naked I swung myself into the chains. I knew from their conversation they were magical students that passed. I had a yearning to foregather with such once more, as I did in the days of my youth. A practical joke gave me the opportunity, and Heaven be praised for the good hap!"

Iron Haquin was about to improve the occasion, but, at this interesting juncture, a howl of rage discharged through the upper air. It came from the head of the Bohemian thrust out of his window. The Jewess snatched up the two hands of her lover and pressed them to her fervid lips. Almost before he was aware of it she had retreated to her bower, and closed the door behind her. At the same moment the Bohemian, having wriggled through his window, leaped headlong into the courtyard. He came down unskilfully. Iron Haquin thought he heard his leg go. He lay there groaning, and then burst into invective against the outlaw.

"The devil rough-ride you that have seen, so close, a dream I only sighted from afar. Bestride me the succubus, if I would have brought you hither had I known she would come out to-night. The skies are dark as a wolf's throat, and I believed she only walked in the moon. Full many a night I watched it shine on her silken hair—silken as the touch of sin—long, so that when she unbound it she stumbled in her locks. Her silver body was fragrant as the boundaries of hell. Death and dissolvement! Let me get you in my grips, and you shall never see her twice! Help me to my feet and unfold your blade, and then bite on what prayers you know!"

The bandit surveyed this unexpected rival with something very much like fellow-feeling. Then he voiced the question that was uppermost in him.

"How old did you suppose her?"

"How old? What do I care how old? Old enough to be loved and to love."

"How old did you suppose her?"

"If you insist on it, I suppose she wears some twenty years, and a queenly garment they!"

"What! Twenty years in your sight also! Why I tell you this very girl is the one of whom I spoke to you that I loved twenty years ago."

"You lie, by the Father of Lies!"

The bandit clapped his hand to hilt, and as instantly snatched it away.

"I fight with no cripple," he hissed in his teeth, "but you shall hear from herself God's truth!"

So saying he ran his great strength against that door. Twice and thrice he rammed it. It did not flinch. He went back a few steps to acquire a fresh impetus. But before he could return to the attack it flew abruptly open, as if moved by some hidden spring. Iron Haquin uttered an astonished cry. The boudoir was no longer there!

The mysterious chamber had undergone another Protean change. To speak more by the book, there was no longer any chamber. The door framed nothing but blackest darkness. Neither ceiling, nor walls, nor floor could be distinguished. By this time the Bohemian had struggled to his feet, and now hobbled in the direction of the door.

"Back, back," cried the bandit, "this is no place for you, nor for any christened man. The foundations of this house are laid in hell. Back, back, as you value your infinite soul!"

"To heel," shrieked the Bohemian, and he whipped our his sword, "lest I strike you in the place where you live! This is my hour, and you shall not be the only one to take her between your hands."

Before Haquin could forestall him, he had leaped the grinning door, and disappeared in enigmatical gloom. He was scarcely lost to sight, when a shriek rang out, beyond conception awful. It was his death-note. The whole air curdled. Iron Haquin fell upon his knees. What grimmest of riddles the victim solved no man shall ever know. His body—even as his soul—was lost in that abysmal horror. For a while Haquin gazed at it, and saw no sign, nor heard what could be called a sound. It was a grave that gave up no dead.

At last, the outlaw rose and crossed himself, and closed the door upon its secret. Withdrawn to his corner, he set himself to think what monstrous enigma couched behind there. The worst of it was that it threw still more suspicion on the woman. But was she a woman at all? In his wanderings across Europe, from sea to sea, he had never lost the Jewess out of mind. Whenever it was possible to acquire later news of her, he spared no pains to do so. But the gossip, through which alone at such a distance he could keep himself in touch with her circumstances, was always vague, and often contradictory. He had been circumstantially assured of her death, and as circumstantially undeceived. But now he began to wonder if that report might have had foundation. To assume that upon losing her the Rabbi had supplied her place with a familiar culled from the females of the pit, would explain nearly all that he had seen. Was it woman or nightmare that couched behind there? He had arrived at no decision when the door again flew open, and he stretched out his head for the next development. But the panoramic capacity of the door seemed, for the time being, to have played itself out. The view was only the old one of the laboratory out of which the Rabbi stepped.

He was loaded with apparatus of ceremonial magic; he deposited it upon the ground; he closed the wonder-working door. His next step was to trace out two enormous circles, one within the other. The outer one embraced the whole area of the courtyard, the other one ran inside it at a distance of about a yard all round. Between the circumferences of these two circles he inscribed seven smaller ones, at equal distances apart. The outlaw, who, though disappointed at the drying-up of the resources of the door, watched all these proceedings with attention, perceived that the seven circles were intended—one each—for the Rabbi and his six attendants. He concluded that the ill-starred Bohemian, as having been undoubtedly cock of the school, would be assigned one of the two circles next the master, which was precisely the post Iron Haquin would have chosen. He was in some doubt, however, as to whether there might, or might not, be a miscarriage when the bedroom was found to be unaccountably empty. Fortunately, the Rabbi (after placing a pan of living coal in each circle) went upstairs to unlock each door, and came down again at once, without opening any. This may have been intended to allow time for his disciples to dress, but he bore as well the air of one having forgotten something, and ran as fast as his years would permit him to that door of doors. The outlaw noted as the Rabbi passed through that it was the boudoir this time visible. Apparently the thing worked round in a cycle. The Rabbi emerged again almost at once with a look of considerable relief. All this was Greek to the onlooker. The five candidates now appeared and took up the circles pointed out to them. The outlaw pulled his hat well over his features, and (as it was still dark) hoped to pass muster. He saw, as he had expected, one of the places of honour was left for the Bohemian. He boldly took his stand there; he had now burnt his boats, and must go through. The Rabbi had not yet syllabled a word, reserving his strength for the strain to come. He silently divided among his assistants the remainder of what he had brought out of his store room. This consisted of civet, amber and musk, of benzoin, camphor and myrrh, of every fragrance that wizards burn.

The Rabbi then stepped into his own circle and commenced a preliminary prayer. The supreme moment had come.

A sudden glow invaded the veins of the amateur exorcist (late Iron Haquin) as he heard that well-known voice. Bit by bit, as he warmed to the work, he remembered the ritual which this very man had once been at pains to teach him. From time to time the other five chimed in with the responses. Iron Haquin dared not risk the recognition of his voice. As the ceremony proceeded the air seemed to grow more dense until it became a matter of difficulty to breathe. It was thickening with, as yet, invisible elementals. Anon the outlaw's attention was drawn to the glances of his fellows, which timorously sought the empty space enclosed by the inmost of the two circles. He was somewhat dashed—even he—to see that this empty space had sunk below the level of the courtyard. Worse, it continued to sink until it disappeared altogether. The magicians now stood in their seven circles, around the circumference of a well. Even this was not the worst, as the bottom, though out of sight, must still be sinking, and would sink to the very confines of the underworld. Connexion was to be opened with the bottomless pit by means of this bottomless shaft. Having arrived at this by no means engaging conclusion, Iron Haquin had only to wait for the end. It came with a sudden smother and smoke that belched from the mouth of the chimney. The Rabbi threw instantly perfumes upon his fire, and his acolytes did likewise. Essence and quintessence fought desperately with the evil odours of this smoke that came straight from eternal fires. And there was borne up with the smoke a weird hubbub of voices, that blasphemed in every tongue. Cracked lips of the damned shrieked execrations in languages long dead, whose accents unintelligible made heart stand still. In vain the Rabbi raised his voice that had never ceased from the first onset. His exorcisms were drowned in oaths both loud and deep, and with the rush and roar of furnaces stoked with blood. And now the thick air showed faces that peered in their eyes, and gibberings that were not faces, creeping and crawling things. The outlaw's skin had long ago wrung out its last drop of sweat. The Rabbi's white hair stood all on end. The moment for the trial had come.