"Is there no other way?"
"There is no other way. Bethink yourself. The offer is there to take it or leave it. Shake hands with my Master or shake your fist at him. Be one of us or one of her executioners."
"I cannot boggle long at that. Death of my soul! Have with you then Aquelarre and let fruition crowd the heels of haste."
"There is yet one thing that you may boggle at. You have ratified the bargain with my Master but not the fee of my procuracy. You cannot do anything without me and I cannot do anything without that Ring which you wear upon your finger as my handsel."
"Your fee is a fleabite to your Master's. The ring I wear is yours but not as earnest money. I pass it over to you only after service rendered. And now lead on to this golem you speak of."
"Be it as you say. The preliminaries being all settled between the high contracting parties, I usher you to the actual presence of my principal."
As he thus concluded the negotiation a covetous light (like to nothing in heaven or earth) shot through the lashes of the devil's attorney. He stood at last upon the brink of attainment of that Ring so thirstily craved. With an imperious gesture he summoned the sailor to follow him and turned off behind the staircase. Directly the sorcerer's back was turned Ataurresagasti could not forbear a broad grin. He had outwitted (at any rate he thought so) both the infernal furious spirit and his attorney. And first as to the latter. The fact was that the only ring worn by the sailor himself, and pledged to Aquelarre by the letter of the bond, was a tawdry hoop of silver. The Ring that contained the familiar had never left the dead man's hand. How then had the inn-keeper imagined otherwise? Simply because the sailor, with a view to better protection, had drawn up his right arm within his sleeve and held the Hand of Glory by the wrist in such a position as to appear his own. The Ring which thus appeared to adorn the sailor's little finger was in reality still upon that of its architect. And, therefore, it was still unpawned to Aquelarre. But this was not the only or even the first fruits of the trick which Ataurresagasti (or his good angel) had set in motion. As he gathered from the sorcerer that the devil would imprint his private mark upon him by means of a grip of hands, Ataurresagasti (or, again, his good angel) jumped at once to the obvious deduction that by going through with the same sleight of hand, Beelzebub would come claw to claw with only the dead Cabalist and earn no soul but his.
Earn no Soul but his, which was undoubtedly already long-earned and already in heats of hell. Thus, by a single piece of hugger-mugger, the buccaneer hoped to go free with his sweetheart and do no harm to anyone. Or, at any rate, to anyone that stood within the reach of harm, the only sufferers being the devil and his lost. How the whirligig of time brought round its revenges the sequel of this story will show. Now that the reader is conversant with what was passing through the mind of the sailor we must return to where we left him at the back of the staircase. Aquelarre, stooping down, by some device which the sailor did not fathom, raised one of the stone slabs of the flooring from its place. This impromptu trap-door disclosed a flight of steps that fell down into absolute darkness. A motion from the landlord and Ataurresagasti fearlessly stalked down them to some distance, where he stopped until he had seen his confederate also enter. Aquelarre drew down the trap-door after him. This last action was fatal, of course, to such light as had previously washed the upper part of the stairs. All was now equal night. Yet the buccaneer continued his descent. The steps seemed endless. At last he stopped. He listened. To his surprise and horror no footfall sounded above. What had become of Aquelarre? The sailor suspected some deception put upon him. He retraced his steps as quickly as was possible under the difficult circumstances of the ascent. That he reached the top was made apparent to him by the crash of his head against the stone. He reeled and all but fell. What had become of Aquelarre? Recovering himself he tried with all his might to obtain egress but not unnaturally without avail. He mopped his brow and tried to think. Escape being impossible in this direction he decided to recommence the descent; come what might he could be no worse off than where he was even if he went down, down, down to the earth's centre. He tried to persuade himself that worse things happen at sea, but his heart of hearts nailed the lie. Down, down, down! He counted (as he thought) a thousand steps but not without dizzy doubts. And then he lost all count—all doubt—all but damned certainty. He had never been sick at sea but now—and then suddenly he staggered against some obstacle. It yielded. It was a door. Firelight danced in his eyes. He rolled into a corner and stood up against a wall. He was in an underground chamber and before him was Aquelarre. How the devil's advocate had got there before him who can tell? Doubtless in some devil's way. Aquelarre made no remark upon the sailor's entrance nor ceased from his work of drawing (on the ground) circle within circle, distant from one another about a hand's-breadth. The sailor rubbed his eyes and looked about him. The space (at one end of the vault) reserved for the circles was scrupulously clean, as well it might be, since one speck of pollution would have nullified their every virtue. The rest of the subterrane was a hotchpotch of horrors—the disjecta membra of a magical laboratory scattered broadcast over every inch of the floor. Here were receptacles of unsightly shapes, crucible and cucurbit, alembic and aludel. Here were the spoils of charnel-house and churchyard, ear and eye, excrement and entrail. Here squat phials bore charges of price, poison and philtre, lac virginis, and elixir vitae. In one corner gibbered a gigantic skeleton. In another lay a Jacob's Staff and a Pentacle of Solomon. In a third heaped up musty vellums, presumably occult; and of these last Ataurresagasti picked up one, and was about to open it at random, when Aquelarre turned suddenly white, and fetched a roar so sudden that the startled sailor dropped it as if it burnt him. The magician (who had just finished inscribing his series of circles) came forward with a brow of night. His fist was clenched as if to strike. But after glaring some moments at the buccaneer, he twisted his nails out of his palm again where they left four bleeding scars. He calmed down still farther before he could speak.
"Madman let this teach you never more to tamper with such wild-fire as a magic book. There are spells on every page of that volume which (had you exposed even one of them to the air) would have dissolved us both into death and hell. It is easy to see that this is your maiden bout as sidesman to an exorcist. Were you an ordinary neophyte, even your failure to play Paul Pry, would have quenched you the light of day. But take heart of grace and fear nothing mortal, for on your life great issues hang. But lest you should make another slip (and perchance to perdition) mark well what I am now about to teach you. And firstly to instal our golem—yonder it hangs in the fourth corner of the vault, suspended and swinging above our heads. You ask me why it so suspends and swings. I will tell you. Look at its forehead and you will see a name, which if you could read our angelical letters you would find to be the name of De Lancre, of the Parliament of Bordeaux. De Lancre, that is the torturer of our wizardry and of your bride, and the touchwood of a thousand fires that depopulate Labourt. But his turn shall yet be served. By the sympathy which I have established between this mannikin and him (by only the sealing of it with his name) I have got into my hands more power over his body than your untortured fancy would conceive. I could even bring his life to a close at this very second, by piercing his heart with a pin. But at the moment I am content by this swinging between earth and sky (as they say swings Mahomet's coffin) to afflict him with horrors, to which death were meat and drink,—to afflict him with dizziness, vertigo, and whirlpool, with falling sickness and ceaseless belching, yea, to the innermost membrane of his soul. But that your need of this lay figure is greater than his, he should sleep never a wink to-night. Nay, not all the drowsy drinks of the Herbal should gum his eyelids up. But behold I release him and lean him against this wall, and erase his name with my finger. 'Tis done, and De Lancre at the very instant far away is restored to perfect health. Some charlatan will doubtless get the credit for a cure."
He broke into a peal of horrible laughter. But the sailor scarcely heeded. He was gazing at the figure which he understood was to be transformed with a blasphemous breath into an exact simulacrum of his betrothed. A greater difference than at present existed between the two could scarcely be imagined. Lisalda was—well we will not attempt the impossible task of reproducing a lover's raptures. The golem was a rude lump of modelling wax with five projections, occupying respectively such parts of the main body as suggested that they were meant for its legs, arms, and head. The last distinguished itself from the four limbs by several additional clues to its identity. It had eyes indicated by a couple of stones. It had ears, or, at any rate, handles, on either side, and a third in front for nose. It had a mouth which left even more to the imagination, since its hieroglyphic was a herring bone. Lastly, it was thatched (somewhat scantily, it must be confessed), with what appeared to be the bristles of a hog. With a view no doubt to decency, the devil's attorney tied a rag about its middle. Another about its right arm he explained as representing the prison bandages which swathed the tortured limb of the real Lisalda. Finally, he inscribed upon its brow a name, and declared it to be complete. And now for a lesson in ceremonial magic. Seven circles Aquelarre had compassed, waxing smaller and smaller within each other. In the innermost (which is where the two daring exorcists should stand) the devil's advocate placed a pan of coals, the same that had hitherto only given light to the room, but of which the real use and purpose was suffumigation. This suffumigation was that part of the work which was to fall to the lot of Ataurresagasti. For this the landlord placed beside the pan various packets of perfumes each numbered in the order with which they were to feed the flames. And woe unto the exorcists, if in the flurry of even one second Ataurresagasti changed the order of succession. They had better have never been born! And now Aquelarre girt him with his magic sword and hung a pentacle about his neck. The time had come to pass the series of circles.