PART I.

MINE HOST OF THE FOUR CROSS ROADS.

The year of grace 1609. Our scene, a tavern within, and yet apart from, the bustle of a seaport town. Damned by its site upon an ill-omened juncture of cross-roads, which, at a time when the town had not straggled so far, had been the burial ground of suicide and sorcerer: haunted by bones still sleepless, although centuries had gone since their last rag of flesh reeked off into the medicinal air; solitary in a crowd, except for such strangers as never learnt the local traditions. For these very reasons it attracted the attention of a class that feared men more than ghosts; and thus it came to be whispered among the neighbours as the house of call for the wizards of the Basque Provinces.

Such was the situation upon which the curtain rises. Our readers may now form a guess as to the character of the traveller that sought admittance upon the evening in question. This traveller was apparently alone—only apparently—for another sentient being suddenly makes known to us his presence on the scene. The cabalistic ring which graced the finger of our traveller shot a double-lightning from its tenant stone as the fist of its lord beat a devil's tattoo on the tavern door. The demon that was imprisoned within the ring had lifted for one second his pendulous eyelids. Foreknowledge of his approaching freedom to be wrought under that roof (as this chronicle shall in due order tell), had touched up buried fires; but patience born of immortality resumed its pride of place, and the Demon dissembling again a hope too soon revealed, there died in the instant all light from the gem, and left it fuscous as before. The fist in knocking was naturally raised above the head of the cabalist that wore the ring. The traveller consequently failed to perceive the eyebeams of his familiar. Be sure if he caught sight of that glint of evil glee he would have read in it an omen of impending disaster to the enterprise that turned him to that tavern. The future of cabalist and demon would then have hung upon his decision whether to dree the weird or 'scape it. But the significants that ruled his horoscope withheld the timely warning, and the traveller continued his endeavours to get hearing from the all too early retired household. Thus the moment of possible retreat passed irrevocably by. A wicket sunk in the stubborn thickness of the door, was thrown suddenly open. A pair of eyes appeared—luminous, terrible. They fixed those of the cabalist unflinchingly, beams to beams, lights to lights, and the cabalist recognised in the eyes of his adversary the self-same, tell-tale film through which he flashed his own. Not the film of the eagle neither, that may enable the king of birds to peruse the noonday sun, but would impotently shrivel before the venomous exhalations that stream from fiery pits that blaze under fallen angels' brows, no, the eyes of the intervisible twain were sheathed with the shard of the born exorcist—the heir of the secrets and physical gifts of a line of wizard sires. From behind these horny casements they had measured the frown of Satan's self, and danced undaunted and undulled. Sparse were the mortals whom the cabalist reckoned fellow-men; but here, at any rate, was one of them. The cabalist waxed kindly, as he proceeded to interrogate what he felt to be a kindred spirit.

"Is this the hostelry of the Four Cross Roads?"

"By some such name is it noted among the Vulgar."

"And are you he of whom they whisper, under the name of Aquelarre?"

"I am the master of this house."

"You are then he to whom I am recommended by one I have good reason to trust."

"May I trouble you for his name?"

"To me he is known as Lisaldo."

"Under that name, at any rate, I do not know him; but that argues nothing. A thousand soldiers know the lieutenant whom the lieutenant does not know."

"By this token you may know him, that he gave you a name of praise and fear—that of the devil's correspondent for the viscounty of Labourt."

"And if it were so?"

"Then over and above being yourself sunk from sole to crown in the study of supernature you have traced the gigantic plan of linking yourself together with all else that tread untrodden ways. And I saw that the design was good—for in union there is strength—and if we in the far New World from which I come, are to-day unthreatened by the bigotry of the church, it would nevertheless be short sight indeed if we played the spectator, while among you runs the writ of cord and faggot. To-morrow, mayhap, we shall be persecuted in our turn, and ashes the brethren that could have bettered us. For this, then, am I travelled hither, as I may say at your bidding, since the suggestion proceeded from one who knows you, though him you may not know; that we may survey together the field of your danger, and in consort draft such measure of defiance and defence as shall eat up this persecution at the root. This evening disembarked and understanding from that same Lisaldo, that under cover of the tavern of the Four Cross Roads your pursue your devil's procuracy, I have hustled hither straight to take up my quarters beneath your kindly roof."

"Are you then alone or do I rightly see two others that linger in your rear among the shadows?"

"The one of them is this Lisaldo that I speak of, to whom I owe your name, and who has attached himself to my personal service; and in this connexion I may mention that I shall require two communicating bedrooms (or be it one with a dressing-room adjacent) to gratify my long, and now invincible, vogue of keeping my servant all night within my call. My other follower is a Creole of the family Ataurresagasti; by trade an honest seaman, but not, I believe, too honest to be of possible use to our cause. Told off to do us service during the long and perilous passage he has been only too anxious to be of comfort to us, and we are indebted to him for countless little offices. Arrived at your wharves we could satisfy him with nothing less than the porterage of half our effects, and since the whole were too heavy for Lisaldo, 'twas but policy to accept his friendly offer, rather than initiate a stranger into our destination. Accommodated with a bed in this same house, he will be under our united ken—should you consider him metal that may be moulded to our purpose he need never return to his ship."

"Nor for the matter of that in the contrary case either, since it were unsafe for him to have even touched the skirts of our common secret. 'Tis child's play for such as you and I to rot the thread of life with an oblivious gruel."

"We will confer upon that matter in the bedroom which you allot me, while Lisaldo and the sailor are refreshing themselves below. You are satisfied with my credentials, and will admit us without delay, since the night is wasting shrewdly?"

"There is one thing wanting—your name."

"My name I have never syllabled since my birth, nor would it be possible to deceive you with a false one, you being what you are and I wearing this ring by whose fame you and all of life occult may know me."

The cabalist jerked his slender hand from out of the folds of his cloak, where he had thrust it after the opening of the wicket. Its crouching prisoner (wiser than before) allowed never a wink to escape him. But that it was in sooth the very ring that contained the familiar (renowned among the sorcerers of the whole round world) Aquelarre well could see. An insane impulse to strike down the insolent owner, and incontinently seize the matchless gem, contracted every fibre of his body. Had the door not stood between them, he would have made the rash attempt, only to remember, when too late, that the allegiance of the Demon could never by violence transfer from man to man. He ground the wicket into its place to hide the distortion of his features, and busied himself with bolts and bars that they might clatter above the gnashing of his teeth. By the time he had undone the fastenings the impulse had passed. Recollecting all the restrictions that fenced the ring around, he had become once more himself. Meanwhile the nameless cabalist had summoned with a whistle his two attendants forward. Youths of about an equal age, the one was white as a cosset page, and the other tanned like a galley-slave.

The massive portal swung a-side with a suddenness that even drew a start from the seasoned nerves of the cabalist, though it must be evident that one who had put together such a ring must be steeped in no ordinary course of sciences and surprises. A blaze of light shot through the widening passage into the dark deserted street. A host of obsequious hands stretched out of the blinding drift and relieved the two bearers of their luggage. Before the three newcomers had acquired the proper focus to even perceive who had thus helped them, the helpers were out of sight. Viands and vintages which had appeared with startling rapidity alone remained to prove to their eyes which the travellers rubbed, the substantiality of the just present bodies. Also the master of the house stood there, unbonneted, and bowing his welcome. The cabalist refused to break a fast which was integral to some experiment in hand; leaving this, then, to the more congenial age of Lisaldo and the sailor, he withdrew with Aquelarre to his apartments. Thus the youths so like, and yet so unlike, at last were left alone together.

The footfalls of the brothers of the black art had hardly died away above stairs when the sailor turned to Lisaldo abruptly and whispered in a tone attuned to every sweetness—;

"Lisalda!"

The page started as if stung to death, at thus hearing an address in the feminine form of the name, instead of in the masculine. His face at first blanched with sudden terror, and then flooded with rosy red. He made a confused attempt at correction.

"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.

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.