“And if I bring thee the sorcerer, what wilt thou teach me in return?”
“What desirest thou most?”
Graul mused, and said, “There is war in the wind. Graul follows the camp, her trooper gets gold and booty. But the trooper is stronger than Graul; and when the trooper sleeps it is with his knife by his side, and his sleep is light and broken, for he has wicked dreams. Give me a potion to make sleep deep, that his eyes may not open when Graul filches his gold, and his hand may be too heavy to draw the knife from its sheath!”
“Immunda, detestabilis! thine own paramour!”
“He hath beat me with his bridle rein, he hath given a silver broad piece to Grisell; Grisell hath sat on his knee; Graul never pardons!”
The friar, rogue as he was, shuddered. “I cannot help thee to murder, I cannot give thee the potion; name some other reward.”
“I go—”
“Nay, nay, think, pause.”
“I know where Warner is hid. By this hour to-morrow night, I can place him in thy power. Say the word, and pledge me the draught.”
“Well, well, mulier abominabilis!—that is, irresistible bonnibell. I cannot give thee the potion; but I will teach thee an art which can make sleep heavier than the anodyne, and which wastes not like the essence, but strengthens by usage,—an art thou shalt have at thy fingers’ ends, and which often draws from the sleeper the darkest secrets of his heart.” [We have before said that animal magnetism was known to Bungey, and familiar to the necromancers, or rather theurgists, of the Middle Ages.]