Lanark told him, rather less coherently than here set down, the adventures of the evening. Again and again he groped in his mind for explanations, but not once found any to offer.
"It is fit for the devil," pronounced Jager when his old commander had finished. "Did I not say that you should have stayed away from that woman? You're well out of the business."
"I'm well into it, you mean," Lanark fairly snapped back. "What can you think of me, Jager, when you suggest that I might let things stand as they are?"
The frontier preacher massaged his shaggy jowl with thoughtful knuckles. "You have been a man of war and an officer of death," he said heavily. "God taught your hands to fight. Yet your enemies are not those who perish by the sword." He held out his hand. "You say you still have the book I lent you?"
From his torn pocket Lanark drew Hohman's Long Lost Friend. Jager took it and stared at the cover. "The marks of fingers," he muttered, in something like awe. He examined the smudges closely, putting on his spectacles to do so, then lifted the book to his nose. His nostrils wrinkled, as if in distaste, and he passed the thing back. "Smell it," he directed.
Lanark did so. About the slimy-looking prints on the cover hung a sickening odor of decayed flesh.
"The demon that attacked you, that touched this book, died long ago," went on Jager. "You know as much—you killed him with your own hand. Yet he fights you this very night."
"Maybe you have a suggestion," Lanark flung out, impatient at the assured and almost snobbish air of mystery that colored the manner of his old comrade in arms. "If this is a piece of hell broke loose, perhaps you did the breaking. Remember that image—that idol-thing with horns—that you smashed in the cellar? You probably freed all the evil upon the world when you did that."
Jager frowned, but pursued his lecture. "This very book, this Long Lost Friend, saved you from the demon's clutch," he said. "It is a notable talisman and shield. But with the shield one must have a sword, with which to attack in turn."
"All right," challenged Lanark. "Where is your sword?"