Chapter V: Part II: The Devil's Attorney (2)

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.

Iron Haquin threw his hat out of the circle where it was instantly torn into a million shreds; His face thrust abruptly into the Rabbi's line of sight, he roared in tones of thunder:--

"Rabbi Lion, I am Iron Haquin!"

The effect upon the Rabbi was electric. His eyes started out of his head. The chant died away upon his lips. He dropped like a stone into the pit. One long low moan reverberated from side to side, broken up by peals of hellish jubilee. A terrible voice that hushed all else cried out three times--

"Lost! Lost! Lost!"

This was the climax, and Iron Haquin the man to bear the brunt of it. No help was to be expected from the five sucking sorcerers. They were ridden to rags. The last events had crowded so quickly together that the outlaw practically took up the litany where the Rabbi dropped it. He gave it such voice as would have been a surprise to the others, were they in a state to make the observation. The fact is, Iron Haquin was drunk with the cup of revenge. For two pins he would have bearded the fiend. The infernals shrunk from the lash and lather of such magnificent rage expressed in the highest terms of art. They of the pit sucked in their smoke and hushed the outlet of despair. The centre of the courtyard reappeared, air refined itself, victorious sweet scents flung wide their banners.

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

This final, formal leave-taking of the spirits, without which no magician worth his salt would ever abandon his circle, wound up what had once looked a serious business. The six could now quit in safety the circles which a moment before had been their only bulwark against perdition. The students were too limp to pay any attention to the giant that had taken their world upon his shoulders. Their little remaining sanity was all bent to the desire to get away from an accursed house. They stumbled out of the front gate, which the outlaw had to open for them, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.

The coast being now clear the bandit made for that other door which had played so many parts. On what would the curtain now arise? He opened and discovered the boudoir. A repetition of its last role. The cycle theory was thus effectually disposed of. There was nothing for it but that the door obeyed some arbitrary will. Scarcely its own. The Rabbi was dead, and worse. There remained then only the Jewess. But where was she? The chamber had no outlet. She could in no wise have left it. Our hero ransacked every corner, he upset, and set up, and upset again every priceless piece of furniture, tore down silk and satin, and threw jewels under foot, ground beneath his heel the command of armies, and the price of the honour of queens. At last his eye was arrested by a common glass bottle, he was fascinated by it, he held it to the light, he all but dropped it. It contained the object of his search.

Yes, there was no doubt now of the death of his former love. No doubt but that the Rabbi's diabolical art and craft had replaced her by a familiar spirit. This was the receptacle in which he confined the familiar at seasons when he was not in need of her. This was the familiar herself within the bottle, reduced most delicately small. She still wore the guise of his long lost wife with which her master had endowed her. She still caused a pang to the iron heart of Haquin to see her down to such poor prison. And she knew her power over him. She knew that he would find a way. She smiled at him divinely, she clasped her tiny hands in prayer to him. But he was aware that he must needs release her. He neither thought nor would have cared that, now her master was dead, once released there was no controlling her. It just had to be done. But how to set about it? The stopper was sealed down and with a talismanic character on the seal. It was the uttermost secret of the Rabbi. Iron Haquin could not read it, and without reading it could never open the bottle. There remained but one avenue of escape--the bottle must be broken. With all the strength of his iron arm he dashed it to the ground. There was a tremendous explosion, a roar like thunder, a flash before his eyes. Not a mirror in the chamber but was shattered and scattered. A rapidly enlarging female form escaped from the shards of the broken bottle. It lost as it enlarged all resemblance to the well-remembered Jewess. It became indefinite, it thinned into little more than a mist. It gradually disappeared, yet, as the last waft of it brushed his face the passionate lover thought he felt once more his sweetheart's lips. But he looked around and saw himself alone with solitude, and wreckage, and desire of death.

THE EVIL EYE.

Our story opens upon a gloomy function; the burning of a gang of wizards and witches.

The bells were ringing, but it was a muffled peal, and the hammers were subdued that wrought the scaffolding in the market place. The steps of the citizens were as those that seek pleasure or plunder by night, and the very soldier trailed a pike most unsoldierly silent. A stranger, who, from the singularity of his appearance, would have attracted notice on any other occasion, to-day threaded unchallenged this German town.

Tall he was, worn down to the bone, gaunt and prematurely grey, hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed. His dress might be described, with no great stretch of language, as little but nakedness visible. But it was sweet with the scent of the sea, and the roll of the sea was in his long legs, as he wound his way to the central square. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. Arrived at his destination he took no heed of the ominous carpenters, nor of the wood-work to which they were putting the finishing touch. He walked straight--and as if by instinct rather than by eye--into a certain tavern of those that debouched upon that place. He might have been supposed to be dumb as well as blind, since he merely made a pantomime expressive of hunger as he sank into one of the seats. The landlord looked with doubt at his visible assets. A sad thing of the nature of a smile flickered upon the burnt and blistered visage of the sailor. He evolved a coin from some miraculous hiding-place in the cobweb that was his apology for raiment. The landlord bit it, rang it, and bit it again. Ultimately he appeared satisfied, and placed food before his customer. The speed with which it vanished would have justified an observer in antedating considerably the stranger's previous meal. Leaving a clean plate he threw himself back in his chair and steadily regarded the landlord.

Then he asked, not without emotion,

"Don't you know me, old comrade?"

The landlord started as if shot.

"By all the saints and saintesses! _Marquard!_"

"Aye, Marquard it is; but not the Marquard you knew of old. It was an evil hour I ran away to sea."

"But why have you not returned these years?"

"Returned! He asks me why I did not return! I that--before I had been long enough aboard to be on good terms with my inner man--was captured by the Algerine! I that have been chained to an oar in the galley of Barbarossa every day of these years of which you speak! But pay no heed to what I say. There is news for which I burn. You that have lived humdrum can tell me of _her_, for whose coquetries I lost patience and exiled myself."

"She lives," murmured the landlord, in a half-hearted way, and he looked upon the floor.

"She lives! And what of my rival that I thought she preferred to me?"

"He lives, if you mean the Hungarian, whose name we could never pronounce, and whom we used to call Teremtette from his favourite oath."

"Come, tell more about them both."

The landlord cast a troubled eye upon him, and again looked down. He spoke with distinct embarrassment.

"Prepare yourself for the worst, my friend. Remember that he of whom we speak was always a hobnobber with sorcerers, and a sorcerer suspect. After your departure he became a sorcerer confessed."

"And _she_, man! What of her?"

"Alas! She followed wherever he led, though the devil's shadow was all his light. She lived with him for a time after you abandoned the field to him."

"I knew it! In my dreams they were husband and wife, the while I hugged a bare board to my aching heart."

"Husband and wife! They were never that, save at some witches' sabbath, mated by priests unfrocked and anathematised, but not in the sight of gods or men."

"Then she is free, and I shall steal her from him yet. I will marry her, but I will kill him first."

"You know not what you say. He is swollen in power until he is acknowledged the master magician of all Germany. It is _whispered_ that he made a pact with Satan, and in pledge thereof exchanged one of his eyes for an eye of the fiend's. It is _known_ that he walks abroad with one eye shut until he wishes to perform some evil. Then he lifts the eyelid and shoots forth a spear of light from that eye which is not his own. And it blasts whereever it falls. For this reason we call him the Evil Eye."

"His backbone shall be limp for me, his front abased, his star is set, his grave is dug, his flesh already rots! I will bury him in a church that he may hug false hopes of salvation, and then I will set my feet on his gravestone when I stand with her before the priest. He shall shriek curses from his coffin while I knit her life to mine, until the scandalised sacred earth shall spit him forth to those that lie in wait."

"Unhappy man, you are still dreaming of the girl you left behind! Do you not realise that, now years have rolled over her, she is a mother witch? Nay, there is worse that I had hoped to spare you. Did you not notice the stakes erected outside in the market place? To-day a host of women, and not a few evil men, are to wipe out their crimes with the last payment. At this very moment the sad procession is entering the square. Do you recognise no prisoner among them?"

He threw open the door. It was even as he said. The sailor sprang to his feet and scanned the accused.

"I do not see him there!"

"Not he, he flies too high for judge or jury, the devil's true knight, hell sublimate! But look again. Do you not recognise one of the women?"

With a terrible foreboding Marquard strained his eyes, but saw no face that corresponded to his memories. They were, without exception, abominable hags that were to suffer. But one of them had at once recognised _him_. Recognised him, in spite of the awful change wrought by his captivity. The foulest beldame of them all stretched her skinny arms to him. Her cracked voice called his name.

"Marquard!"

An icy hand gripped the galley-slave's heart-strings. In that second he lived all the years since last he had seen her. He saw (in his mind's eye) golden hair shade to grey, skin become parchment, roses and lilies scatter in dust. He recognised her, and he leaped forward to her like an arrow from a bow. The spectators parted in amaze, to right and left. Guards and executioners fell back from his foot and hand. He caught the outstretched hands of the witch in his. He devoured her with his looks, and she him. He was as one in a dream. He scarcely felt her press something round into one of his palms. She whispered so that he alone heard her:--

"Marquard! It is a charm I am giving you that has cost me dear. It will protect you from all evil, and especially from _him_. As you love me, never part with it while you live. I dare not wish you well lest my prayer should blast you. Good-bye, and think sometimes kindly of me."

He would have retained her, but she drew her fingers away, leaving with him that globular thing to which he paid no attention. She kissed him with her eyes. He tried to speak, but words were choked in sobs. And now the soldiers, both horse and foot, bore down upon him. A cry of rescue was raised by some of the crowd that were interested in the prisoners. Others shouted them down, and shook their fists in Marquard's face. The wildest confusion reigned. His rags were torn from his back. A hundred blades were thrust into his flesh. Those that had taken his part pulled him one way, the more law-abiding citizens pulled him another. His head swam, he lost his footing, he fell, and was trampled alike by friend and foe, in the pitched battle that was fought over his body. He lost consciousness, and knew no more.

When he recovered his painful identity, it was some time before he could remember what had passed. He was sick, as he fancied, from the rollings of the galley, and sore from the laying-on of the taskmaster's whip. It was the possession of a certain ball, which he still clutched in his palm, which, after he had stared at it for a while, led him back to truth. When, by degrees, he had recovered his memory, he tried to make out of what substance it was formed, but without arriving at any conclusion, he carefully stowed it away. He was most puzzled by the fact that he was in a room. It was dark, so that a considerable time must have elapsed. He rose, and felt all round the walls. There was no doubt about it. Presently he came upon the door. He tried it. It opened. He was evidently not a prisoner. He stepped into a passage, and up to another door. This one was locked, but the key was in it. He turned it, and opening the door disclosed the square. The mystery was now solved. He was in the precincts of the tavern. He had been saved, perhaps from death, by his good friend, the inn-keeper.

The night was magnificently clear. A single star hung low in the ear of the moon. He looked all around the deserted place that during his swoon must have been the scene of butcherly justice. The remnants of the stakes were evidence that the decrees of the law had really been executed. A few fragments of charred bone were now all that remained of the girl he had loved. He seemed to scent the odour of burnt flesh in the air. Suddenly, he became aware that he was not alone in his contemplation of this field of blood. Some man was ferreting about the bases of the stakes, and sifting the human dust that paved the square. It needed no second look to tell the galley-slave who this was, so much keener than love is hate. It was the man--or more than man--of whom Marquard had conferred with the inn-keeper. It was the Hungarian--Teremtette--the Evil Eye.

For what then was he a-search among this life that had ceased to live? Marquard thought that he could answer this question. The ball of so much mystery had been given to him by the witch, as a charm that would protect from this very man. The association of the Hungarian with her made it probable that he was acquainted with her possession of it, and with its powers. Such being the case, it was a property that he must itch to lay his fingers upon. Perhaps he had even attempted, and failed, to obtain it from her while she was alive At any rate it was this, presumably, which he was agog for on the scene of her death. As a charm it would be unconsumable by fire, and had Marquard not been before him the Hungarian might have attained his end. The one weak point in the theory was that it supposed the wizard ignorant of Marquard's return. Yet this was not impossible, since surely even wizards have their limitations. Having decided Upon this explanation of his rival's presence, Marquard burned to confront him face to face. He strode boldly out of his protecting doorway. The Hungarian heard his step, looked up, and sprang to his feet. The galley-slave noted with a thrill that one of his eyes was closed. It was the Evil Eye against which he was soon to test his powers of endurance. For the wizard had evidently recognised him at once. His whole face was writhen with diabolical glee. Slowly he raised the lid that covered the Evil Eye. There was a gush of blinding light from under that veil. The square was lit up as by noonday sun. The ray struck remorselessly upon the sailor. He stood erect unshaken. Astonishment was legible upon the magician's features at this evident failure of his trusted weapon. He raised the lid to its fullest extent, and put all he was worth into the uncanny stare. But the sailor stood erect, unscathed. The charm was doing the work which its donor had foreseen, and doing that work right well. The galley-slave registered a vow never to part with it. Suddenly the magician dropped his eyelid, and the market-place once more was dark. He had apparently arrived at some decision, for now--for the first time--he spoke.

"Antlers of Belial!! Do I see before me my old friend Marquard?"

"Your enemy to the hilts you see."

"You must pardon my defective sight which obliged me to call in the aid of science before I recognised you. Who would have thought of seeing you here? But now I know you I shall not readily part with you. You shall sleep under no other roof than mine this night of your home-coming."

"Dare you speak thus to _me_, knowing that this day the woman we both loved has died a horrible death at hangman's hands, and all for following the course _you_ set and staked for her?"

"Nonsense, my friend. You have been deceived by a chance resemblance, if indeed any could exist between such wrinkles as were smoothed out to-day and a face that made the stars ashamed. I regret to say that I have lost sight of her for many a year--that maiden we both knew and loved; I would give all I have left to give to see her before me as she was. Her waist was slender as the waist of death--I cannot conceive her as blue flame and grey ash. Again I say you have deceived yourself, my friend."

"Friend me no friends! What I feel for you is unscabbarded, naked hate."

"Death and the judgment! If you do not love me, you _fear_ me, coward that you are!"

"Were I the crowning coward--the bye-word and mock of cowards--there would be one man beneath my fear."

"And do you mean that I am that man? I challenge you then to accompany me to my castle. It is worth the seeing."

"You need not press me. I ask nothing better than your company. You shall tire of me ere I tire of you. Lead, and I will follow you to the fringes of the Pit."

"We'll needs ride sabbatical post."

He plucked up two charred logs that lay near at hand. He thrust one between the knees of the galley-slave and the other between his own. He uttered a magic word, sharp, pungent, and obeyed. The logs became two stallions, black as grief and fleet as joy. Before Marquard had grasped the fact that he was mounted, they were out of the town.

The weather, as we have said, was of the clearest. A train of obscene hags, bound for some witches' frolic, was the only thing that rode the night. They passed it and left it easily in their rear. Their pace, in fact, was a pace to kill. They shook off a mile with every sweat drop. It took them a second to shoot through a forest. They cleared, not one river, but twos and threes at a time; the wind, striving to keep up with them, fell breathless. Huge mountains tossed their grandsire heads and deemed themselves impassable. These also the chargers crossed, and left them shrugging their fat shoulders far behind. But now a peak of peaks appeared--a Babel that overlooked earth, and peered into heaven--would they double that? They reached its summit, but at the instant, with a word from the sorcerer, they were logs again.

Marquard reeled as his feet touched ground. He steadied himself with an effort, and took a step forward. The Hungarian seized him by the collar, just in time to save him from a fall. They were standing upon the edge of a precipice. The sailor looked down and saw no bottom--a gulf that staggered reason. He shuddered at his escape, and reeled again. When he had somewhat recovered, he rubbed his eyes, and took a careful survey of the position.

They had been deposited at the extreme altitude of the mountain. But it was not a single peak, it formed a ring like the crater of a volcano, but of a diameter so stupendous that its further side was barely visible to the naked eye. Of its depth we have already given some idea, but the most singular feature of the whole strange place--the feature which made it impossible to regard it as a mere giant volcano--was a slender spire of rock that shot up from its unknown floor to about the same height as the surrounding rim. It might be compared to a Cleopatra's Needle set in a well, or else to the stamen of some egregious petrified flower. Or from the sailor's point of view (considering the spot where he stood as mainland) it was an islet left bare by a dried-up sea. Nor was it a desert island. It was inhabited, or at any rate it was built upon. There was a castle on it which it was just large enough to hold. The outer walls merged straight down as if one piece with the wall of rock upon which they were founded. From the front entrance, a bridge of marble, with rails of gold, spanned the abyss that separated the castle from the mountain.

While Marquard was making these observations, the Hungarian took stock of him with his single eye. When the sailor had apparently sucked in all his environment, Teremtette asked him, what seemed on the face of it, a neediest question.

"What do you see?"

"I see a castle, whiter than a bride, uplift upon yon mast of stone."

"What else do you see?"

"I see a bridge across the airy moat that parts us from that fantastic crow's nest."

"That castle and that bridge are of my architecture. If you consider as child's play all that you _have_ dared--if you are willing to _begin_ to show high courage--you can follow me within its gates."

He walked towards the bridge, crossed it, and disappeared within the castle walls. The galley slave sat down, and gazed at the fairy fabric in something very much like indecision. He felt among his garments to see if he still possessed the talisman, the witch's parting gift. It was there. He drew it forth and looked at it. A little shrivelled pellet, of some unknown dried substance, it was as much of an enigma to him as ever. He laid it upon the rock on which he sat, and turned again towards the castle. To his horror and astonishment it was losing its clearness of outline. It became--along with the bridge--semi-transparent. He could see through them both. They grew thinner, and thinner. They faded into little more than mist. Ultimately nothing of either was any more visible. Only the bare pillar stood up in the midst of the chasm. But no--there was a figure upon the now tonsured rock--it was the figure of the Hungarian. A moment's thought explained this. The castle alone was unsubstantial. In disappearing it left revealed the man that had been within it. He was too far off for the sailor to be sure of what he was engaged on. There ran through all Marquard's veins a current of fear. He felt helpless in the presence of all this glamour that he did not understand. He looked round for his only friend--the amulet--thank God! it was still there. He snatched it up, resolved never more to let it away from him. And then another wonderful thing occurred. The castle and its bridge again gradually appeared in sight. The sailor began to suspect the rules of the game. He could not forbear to put the talisman down again for a moment. The outlines of the magical buildings grew immediately dim. He took up the ball. Their solidity was immediately restored. He now knew his bearings. There could be no longer any doubt. Apart from their creator--the Hungarian--the castle and bridge were only visible to the holder of that wizened trifle. Marquard packed it away, with heightened respect, and deliberately walked up to, and across, the bridge. It rang substantial enough under his feet, for him to almost doubt the truth of what he had just seen. He was too near his enemy to hazard any more experiments. He found him in a goodly, square, and most singularly wall-papered room, inasmuch as each of its walls--where not pierced for a door--was one vast mirror. In the centre stood a table loaded with every delicacy in and out of season. At each side of the table was placed a luxurious chair. The Hungarian pointed to one of these and spoke.

"I bid you to this last supper, in the name of those that hold this house, if you dare sit down and feast."

"I dare do anything in _your_ company."

"Then eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow one of us two dies. That, I believe, was the intention, with which you accompanied me hither?"

"You are right therein, as always."

"Then for an hour we will proclaim a truce to all our differences. We will pledge the survivor in flowing bowls from vintages of a thousand years. Wine you shall have creating thirst and woman creating desire. That is if you can call her woman that tempted Adam out of Paradise."

"To whom do you refer?"

"To Lilith, Eve's rival, queen of all damnations!"

"Was it for _her_, then, that you sold your soul and swopped an eye with Satan?"

"Ha-ha, you have heard that story. It is true that I left my eye in pawn, but it is false that I received one in exchange. This is not an eye at all--this Evil Eye as they call it--whose beam is supposed to blight wherever it falls. In your own person you have tested its perfect harmlessness."

He paused, as if to see whether the sailor had swallowed this more than doubtful statement. The latter made no sign. The wizard then proceeded to lift his sinister eyelid, until the fiery stab of the Evil Eye was a second time unveiled. As before it had no effect whatever on Marquard. The magician then lifted his finger to it, and with a twist turned the apparent eye-ball out of its socket. It slipped over the finger that had released it, and in so doing shewed what it really was. It was a _ring_, set with an enormous blazing stone!

Yes, this was the fabled Evil Eye, this innocent circlet of gold with its flashing stone. The magician obligingly extended the hand that now wore it, to the end that Marquard might examine it more minutely. As he got accustomed to its baleful glare, he perceived that this was not generated by the gem itself. The gem was hollow, and served merely as a receptacle for something _alive_ that crouched within. From the eyes of this living weevil--or devil--or whatever it was--streamed the poison of ill-effect which the public had thought to proceed from an Evil Eye. Nor were they wrong after all, only that there were two evil eyes, and their owner to boot--instead of one. But even this was only the beginning of the Hungarian's surprises. Having allowed the sailor to gaze long enough upon the ring, he rested the hand that wore it upon a chair. Then with the other hand he just touched the gem at his side. It flew open and the creature that lived in it came forth. She increased in size--the sailor saw that it was a woman--a woman, whose beauty would have blinded the severest eye. She would have seduced an anchorite to dimpled sin.

"You see," laughed the Hungarian, "that, if I got no eye from the devil, he gave me a rib out of his side."

When she had reached the height of her companion Lilith stopped growing, and sat down upon her chair. The magician seated himself at one hand of her, the sailor at the other, and looked inquiringly towards the vacant place that fronted her. The Hungarian intercepted his glance, and grinned.

"Look at the mirror, man," he cried, "there are more guests here--and more august--than you imagine."

The galley-slave looked at the mirror behind the vacant side of the table, and started from his seat in sudden terror. The mirror reflected the back of someone as if occupying that chair, which nevertheless still stood in front of it, empty. The sailor looked from chair to mirror--from mirror to chair again--but there was no mistaking that weird fact. His hair stood up. He sank into his seat. He snatched to his white lips the first goblet that came to hand. The magician at once took up his own glass and cried out, mockingly,

"I second your toast! To the health of our guest--the Orb and Sceptre of all the hells!"

From that the orgie waxed fast and furious. They swam in music. The room was grey with incense. Their lights were balls of coloured fire that flashed in the air, and ever and anon dropping into their cups hissed like snapdragons. Songs were sung that fallen angels had brought from paradise. Tales were told of doings done before the world was planned. But who sung, and who narrated was beyond the sailor's ken, a-swim as he was with wine and witchery. He grew more and more bemused. The table whirled round and round. The viands slipped away from his hands, when he turned to look at his fair neighbour he could only find the one eye of the Hungarian. The mirrors gave back distortions. All was confusion and delusion, and mocking laughter in his ears. After a brave attempt to keep his head, he rolled upon the floor. The vintages of a thousand years had done their work.

When he awoke, with a splitting headache, the room was clear. The Hungarian paced up and dawn at one end. A glance at him sufficed to show that the matchless ring had been restored to its socket.

"Ha-ha," laughed the sorcerer, "are you looking for the girl you were so sweet on last night? Behold her!" He lifted his eyelid, and there flashed forth coquettish lights from the prisoner of the gem.

The sailor sprang to his feet.

"Arch and unheard-of juggler," he cried, "your play is played, and your curtain is nigh to ringing down. You have done the devil's work--beshrew the like!--and you shall get the devil's wages. You shall rue the day you brought me here."

"The nightmare be your bride! Were you not girt with an adverse fate you had dawned in a fiercer place than this! And now, if you are bent upon a duel--and the laws of hospitality do not protect me--I will even let you take the lead."

"Then look to yourself, witch-master!" cried the sailor, drawing a rusty pistol from his long sea-boot. He took aim, and fired; the bullet struck the Hungarian, and _rebounded_. A peal of laughter shook the hall.

"The devil kiss your lips!" cried the sorcerer; "you have no reach for me! But try again if you like before I set my foot on the neck of your revenge."