Then he laughed. 'Let's have 'em in and hear their yarn!' he said.
So Jack and Jim were sent for, and, after some slight delay, appeared. They were well washed and in their Sunday clothes. They were disposed to be deferential enough, but withal very confident, both of them. They cast somewhat awed glances at Smythe in his armchair, but they told their tale clearly on the whole, in fair Biblical English, Jack first, slowly, and Jim, at a great pace, after his superior. Smythe appeared to be busily consulting a reference while Jim was ending. There was a pause. Then the guest looked up from his book and stated his alibi: 'I was in my stable, sitting up with a sick horse,' he said. 'I came away long after the church service was over when the poor beast died with frothing at the nose. You can ask my stable-boy.'
Jack bowed his head respectfully. 'Your stableboy, Mutenu, has told me so this evening,' he said. 'But, O master, why should we lie? Is it not known that people have been seen in two places at one time'?'
Smythe frowned. He was not anxious to discuss hypotheses with natives. Then the Bishop told the boys that he had heard enough. Let them think that although they had spoken truth, they had been mistaken.
'How do you explain it?' said the Bishop rather eagerly when they had gone out.
'O,' said Smythe with a rather bitter smile, 'supposing it not to be a native lie—natives have been known to lie, my lord—it's the sort of story one reads about in the Middle Ages, the sort of legend likely to linger. He was seen going into a church on a certain ill-starred night.'
The Bishop gave a start and interrupted him. 'Do you know what yesterday evening was? Why, it was Saint Mark's Eve.'
Smythe smiled a queer livid smile. 'Yes, I thought of that all along, since the boy mentioned the porch,' he said. 'I've just been looking up the old belief in that new book of yours. I was seen going in, therefore I must look to go out in these next twelve months.
A year, a month, a week, a natural day
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus will be damn'd.
The Bishop smiled at the quotation, but looked anxiously at his guest. Was he really taking his subliminal self's choice of date to heart? He proceeded to recount his own unfaith in thirteen's black magic, also in the traditional properties of salt and broken mirrors. He gave instances of disproof in his own unended career.