'Three chances of escape shalt thou have,[17] but if thou failest, then there is no appeal. Set me three tasks, and if I cannot perform any one of them, then art thou free.'
There was a glimmer of hope in this, and the shivering necromancer brightened up a little, actually rising from his ignoble position and once more standing erect, as he gleefully said,
'I agree.'
'Ah, ah,' said the Evil One sotto voce.
'Count the raindrops on the hedgerows from here to Ellel,' cried the schoolmaster.
'Thirteen,' immediately answered Satan, 'the wind I raised when I came shook all the others off.'
'One chance gone,' said the wizard, whose knees again began to manifest signs of weakness.
There was a short pause, the schoolmaster evidently taking time to consider, for, after all, life, even in a place like Cockerham, was sweet in comparison with what might be expected in the society of the odoriferous one whose mirth was so decidedly ill-timed and unmusical. The silence was not of long continuance, however, for the Evil One began to fear that a detestably early cock might crow, and thereby rescue the trembling one from his clutches. In his impatience, therefore, he knocked upon the floor with his cloven hoof and whistled loudly, after the manner followed now-a-days by dirty little patrons of the drama, perched high in the gallery of a twopenny theatre, and again danced rapidly round the ring in what the tenant deemed unnecessary proximity to the chalk mark.
'Count the ears of corn in old Tithepig's field,' suddenly cried the schoolmaster.
'Three millions and twenty-six,' at once answered Satan.