"Did you take advice from any man before you sought admission within these walls, young master?" he went on, "Did you commend your soul to your Maker? Did you bid good-bye to all you hold most dear?"
"I did not do any of these things, Father Solomon," I answered as jauntily at I could.
"Thus you show your foolishness."
"That is as may be," I made answer.
"And what do you think will be the end of this visit?" he asked, and I thought his interest was growing in me.
"The end, Father Solomon?" I replied with a laugh. "The end will be that you will tell me what I wish to know, and then we shall say good-bye."
"You are but a youth," he said solemnly. "You are yet only on the threshold of life, therefore it grieves even me that you should be cut off before your prime. And yet I see no chance of your escape. You have entered the region of the departed dead, you have lifted to your lips the goblet of which lost souls drink. Still, I would save you if I could. If you will take the oath that I shall prescribe, an oath to the Prince of Darkness who reigns here, then may I be persuaded to allow you to depart without injury."
The man made me shiver as he spoke, but I had not come hither to be frightened before my work was begun. So I summoned up all my courage, and laughed in his face.
"You laugh!" he cried angrily, "but in an hour from now you shall hear only the laughter of devils. The only words of comfort that you shall hear shall come from the lips of hell-hags, who shall drag you deeper and deeper down into the caverns of darkness."
"Have done with this, Elijah Pycroft," I said quietly, for this threat made me feel that he was uttering only gipsy cant.