"Nay, nay, fearful woman," he cried, betraying some alarm at her words and threatening attitude, "I meant not to anger thee. Wilt give the amulet? I cannot go forth on this mission of revenge without it. I know its mysterious and wonderful power, and must avail myself of it on this occasion. Thou shalt have it after."
The sorceress looked troubled at his eager anxiety to possess the mystic seal, and at length said, in a solemn tone of voice, and with a manner calculated to have its effect on an imagination the least tinged with superstition,
"Mortal, thou knowest not what thou seekest! If he who wears this on his breast fail in his last trial of its mystic power, he shall become the slayer of the mother who bore him!"
"What is this to me? I have no mother, sorceress."
"Ha! well, no, no! thou hast not!" she said, with a singular expression. "Yet such is the doom of him in whose hands it fails. Thou shalt not wear it!"
"I will. If I tear it from thee by violence!"
"'Twill then do thee no good. It must be placed around thy neck with solemn rites. Thou shalt have it," she said, suddenly, after a moment's thought, "for thy success is my success. The risk shall be run by me! Hast thou the nerve to go through the initiating rites?"
"I will stop at nothing. Give it me, with every hellish charm thou canst invent. Once my revenge accomplished, take it back."
"But He'll not give thee back the price thou payest for it."
"Ha! Well, be it so! I will not ask it. My soul is as well in the devil's keeping as in my own. The world beyond has for me neither hopes nor fears. My present aims accomplished, I care not for the bugbear future! In the name of the master whom thou servest, give me the amulet!"