"But she is innocent—my God, how innocent—and I, who begin almost to believe that I am guilty, will surrender at once in her place."
"Small good (my untutored friend), save the melancholy satisfaction of pressing the same rack with her. The Parliament of Bordeaux never let slip a single victim, nor is it any longer merely the indictment for the murder of the Cabalist that piles the faggots for her. You are a babe and suckling in these horrors. I am prematurely grey with them. Had you but seen (as I have) the mother burnt with the child at her breast—the loving pair chilled at the same stake—the friendship of years dissolved in smoke, but enough—to get out of the Torture Chamber (as you should readily guess) the corpus vile reduced to a crushed craze will sign any depositions that may be held out as a bait. The consequence is that your girl has already avowed her identity with a desperate, long-sought-for witch and sacristan to one of the most noted of our Black Priests. So much for the wringing of one set of nerves. To what may they not confess her before they have writhed her into a bag of quivering pulp?"
"Enough, enough, enough, can nothing be done to save her? O, you whom all this persecution has left upright (and a refuge as men whisper to the threatened) from whatever source your commission comes, I wrap about me the hem of your mantle. Be your aid of God, or Devil, I invoke it!"
"Do you know what you ask? The Indians of Darian are charity, compared to me and mine. Be my aid of God, or Devil do you say? You shall rest in no doubt upon that head. The bare mention of the name of God is a source of danger among us of the opposition, save when we take it (for our own purposes) in vain. And of the opposition I have been, am, and shall be. That with which surmise is rife be here with certainty known to you! You treat with one having authority deputed from the Most High, the Prince of this World and of Hell."
"I have never shrunk from any, save one woman, and I do not shrink from you. In all this storm you are my sheet anchor."
"Then in my character of the Devil's proxy I offer you your heart's ease in tender for your soul!"
"In the event of my agreeing to your proposition how do you set to work to save her?"
"By the substitution for her of a golem, a device that I learnt from a Rabbi of Provence that was my teacher in the art of cabala. It is a doll of wax (or indeed of any substance), no matter how uncouth, and upon the forehead of which in angelical letters one writes a chosen name—in your case the name Lisalda—I shall then conjure for you in a strong circle. You will clinch the bargain with my master in person by striking hands with him. And his claw will leave you for your lifetime branded with his private brand. This done he will breathe upon the golem. Obedient to the breath of life it starts (to all outward appearance) into a perfect double of the person in whose name it may have been inscribed. In your case the name Lisalda. Nor will you yourself be able to tell whether Lisalda or the devil's coin stands before you. You will forgive my suggesting that in some respects you might be better off with the ideal than the real, since it starts in life (like a child) with a clear slate and you may teach it in what sort you will."
"How now! Do you libel my love?"
"I speak but as a man of the world and to some extent of the next world also. However, to resume our ways and means. My Prince having bestowed upon the golem such life as it is only his and God's to give, I then smuggle the innocent know-nothing into the prison of your Lisalda and carry off Lisalda in exchange. Then to horse and hey for love and leisure—on the further side of the Bidassoa; but the cheat will never be discovered, and in fine and in finish the golem will run to ash like so many of her betters."