And the other answered:
“No. Nothing of the kind. What is Katheline’s belongs to me. All of it.”
Then they blasphemed together most terribly, disputing as to which of the two should be possessed of the property and the love of Katheline and of Nele into the bargain. Paralysed with fear, daring neither to speak nor to move, Katheline presently heard them fall to fighting with one another. And then one of the devils cried aloud:
“Ah! The cold steel!”
And after that there came the sound of a death-rattle, and of a body falling heavily.
Terrified as she was, Katheline returned to the cottage.
At two of the morning she heard once more the cry of the sea-eagle, but this time close at hand in the yard. She went to the door and opened it, and saw her devil lover standing there all alone.
She asked him what he had done with his friend.
“He will not come again,” he told her.
Then he kissed her and caressed her, and his kisses seemed colder than ever before. When the time came for him to depart, he asked her to give him twenty florins. This was all that she had, but she gave him seventeen.