"He is an astrologer, and he will tell our horoscopes!"
At the same moment several of the strange-looking dancers whirled out of the hall, and came in again leading with care and reverence a white-robed, white-veiled figure, who came and stood beside the table, but rigid and still, as though hardly endowed with life.
At sight of that figure Alys gave a sudden start, and exclaimed in a low, frightened voice,—
"Pray Heaven that be not Linda! It is just her figure and her carriage! Oh, surely that magician cannot be Tito, and he have gotten possession of Linda for his evil practices!"
Leofric started, and gazed at the speaker with earnest eyes.
"It cannot be Linda; she was safe in Oxford when I left. But she told me that Lotta had lately disappeared, they knew not whither; only their brother Tito had once been seen lurking near the city, and it was thought he had perhaps come for his books and the instruments by which he wrought his unholy trade. Lotta had had the care of them since his departure, and had grown very strange. It may be that she has cast in her lot with him. But can that in truth be he?"
"He would sell his soul for gold," spoke Amalric between his shut teeth. "But he has put his head into the lion's den at last. If he has designs upon my father's life, we have a gallows on the wall whereon he shall pay the penalty of his sin."
"Methinks these mummers are no part of his real company," said Leofric. "Probably he has joined himself to them, and given them something to win him his entrance hither. But let us watch what he is doing. We must not let any devilry of his go unobserved."
"Nay, we will seek to catch him red-handed in the act!" hissed Amalric; "and methinks I will go below, the better to guard my father from his crafty wiliness."
The wizard, as he now openly declared himself to be, was busy practising the smaller arts of his calling upon the credulous, with results which appeared to them to be marvellous. But not content with that for long, he called upon the great ones of the company to come and hear what the future held for them—to look into the crystal, or into the magic mirror, and to ask of the white-robed vestal such things as they desired to hear.