‘That is my daughter,’ said Mammon. ‘She shall be your wife, and all these treasures that are too great to be counted shall be yours, if only you will be my servant.’
‘I thank you, Mammon,’ said Guyon, ‘but my love is given to another lady.’
The Money God was full of rage, yet still he thought that he might win Guyon to his will. He took him to a garden where dark cypresses hung their heads over the flaming blossoms of poppies that made men sleep for ever, and where every sort of poisonous flower and shrub flourished richly. It was called the Garden of Proserpine.
The most beautiful thing in the garden was a great tree, thickly leaved and heavily hung with shining golden apples. The branches of the tree hung their golden fruit over a dark river.
When Guyon went to the river’s brink and looked in, he saw many men struggling and moaning in the dark and fearful water. Some were trying to grasp the fruit that hung just beyond their reach, and others were trying vainly to get out.
‘You fool!’ said Mammon, ‘why do you not pick some of the golden fruit that hangs so easily within your reach?’
But Guyon, although for three long days and nights he had been without sleep and meat and drink in the dark land of the Money God, was too true and good a knight to do what Mammon wished. Had he picked the fruit, he would have put himself in Mammon’s power, and at once been torn into a thousand pieces.
‘I will not take the fruit,’ he said; ‘I will not be your slave.’
And then, for days and days, Guyon knew no more.
When he came to himself and opened his eyes, he found that his head was resting on the knee of the good old palmer.