"Now, sister," he said, "tell to these our friends all that thou didst tell to me upon the night after we had carried to her home the swooning Linda. For if thou be right in what thou dost surmise, Hugh le Barbier is yet alive, and in sore need of help from without, which we must give him without delay. Wherefore speak, and speak freely, for we are all friends here."
Joanna told them of what had befallen her and Linda when they sought to learn more of the fate of Hugh—how they had been taken blindfold into the presence of the magician, and how the wan and wasted face of Hugh had appeared before them in the magic mirror.
"Linda at that moment did faint away," said Joanna, "but in the darkness the magician seemed not to know it. He made some strange passes with his hands, and then the lips of the mirrored face moved, and a voice which sounded far away spoke in urgent accents, bidding Linda forget him, and do all that was desired of her, as thus and only thus could she save him from a fate that was worse than death. Linda did not hear one word of this; but I heard all, and methought I knew whose was the voice that spake these things."
"Whose was it?" was the eager question.
"Tito Balzani's," was the reply. "We all know the power Tito possesses to throw his voice here, there, and wherever he chooses, and to imitate the voices of others. We also know well that he has some knowledge of magic and the black arts. His mother was accounted a witch, as I have often heard, and she bequeathed to him certain books and properties the use of which he has been studying of late more than some folks think wise. There be always those who would seek to pry into forbidden things, and Tito is one of such. He could play magician well, methinks, an he had the mind; and I verily believe it was he and none other who so astonished and awed our townfolk during the week of the fair."
"That might explain much," cried Jack, "for all men were aghast at the things the magician told them about themselves, which smacked mightily of mystery if it were a stranger who thus spoke, but would easily be explained if he were their own townsman. But leaving that matter, how could he have deceived your eyes by the trick of the magic mirror? How could he have gotten the face of Hugh reflected there?"
"What I believe," answered Joanna, gravely and earnestly, as she glanced round the faces bent upon her, "is that Tito Balzani and Roger de Horn have made a prisoner these two months of Hugh le Barbier, and are practising some of their devilries upon him—Roger from jealous rage and hatred, because Linda scorns his suit and has given her heart to Hugh; Tito because he desires that his friend should wed his sister, and because a living subject can ofttimes be of such great use to one who is practising the black arts of magic and mystery. Thou knowest, brother, that the traveller who once chanced this way and told us of many strange things he had seen in far-off lands, said that human blood was needful to many of those experiments which sorcerers delight in. If that face were truly Hugh's which we did see in the mirror, truly methinks he has been bled within an inch of his life."
Amalric started up in great excitement.
"If that be so, we must fly to his rescue ere they do him to death with their foul spells."
"It is to talk of that that we are here together to-day," answered Gilbert, whose face was stern and resolute. "But first we must find out where they have hidden him; for albeit many of our townfolk did go forth beyond the gates to inquire further of the magician, all were fast blind-folded both in coming and going, so that none can say where the place stands which hides his guilty secrets."