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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am Iron Haquin!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The Rabbi Lion is our teacher."

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

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

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

"It is her very self!" he cried.

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

"Iron Haquin!"

"You know me after all these years?"

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

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

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

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

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

"But the Rabbi?"

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

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

She laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How old did you suppose her?"

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

"How old did you suppose her?"

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

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

"You lie, by the Father of Lies!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.