“I take you burgling; in the fact, sailor. What is your name?”
“A better name than yours.”
“Your name is Harker. My name is the Holy One.”
“I thought you looked lousy enough for a saint.”
“Do you know the laws about burgling in this land? We may kill burglars. We do kill them. Every day a corpse of a burglar is flung out. You have seen such. They are often sailors, unclaimed three days, then buried. I just tell you now, that your corpse will be flung out of here, in a little while, when I have finished with you. I shall not keep you long, but it will be before your friends come here, never fear.”
“You had better hurry up then,” Sard said, “for they will be here in ten minutes. And you had better not boast too much before witnesses of the crimes you plan.”
The man stepped swiftly up to Sard and slapped his cheek. When he tried to slap the other cheek, Sard, as a boxer, was too quick; he snapped at the hand and bit it; the man wrenched himself free.
“The trapped rat bites,” he said. “Very well.”
He did not seem to mind the bite, though it bled. He seemed to pass into a state of contemplation in which the body did not matter.
“Do you know what I am?” he asked. “I am the priest of evil. This triangle in which you stand is the temple of evil. These gallows posts to which you stand are the altars of evil. I am going to offer mass to evil, of bread and wine. Do you know what bread and what wine?”