"Satan!" I almost shouted. "A prayer to the force of evil!"
"Not so loud, Connatt. And then, while Miss Holgar stands inside a circle—that, also, is part of the witch ceremony—he touches her head, and speaks words we do not know. But we can guess."
He struck his stick hard against the sandy earth.
"What then?" I urged him on.
"It's in an old Scottish trial of witches," said Pursuivant. "Modern works—J. W. Wickwar's book, and I think Margaret Alice Murray's—quote it. The master of the coven touched the head of the neophyte and said that all beneath his hand now belonged to the powers of darkness."
"No! No!" I cried, in a voice that wanted to break.
"No hysterics, please!" snapped Pursuivant. "Connatt, let me give you one stark thought—it will cool you, strengthen you for what you must help me achieve. Think what will follow if we let Miss Holgar take this oath, accept this initiation, however unwittingly. At once she will assume the curse that Varduk—Byron—lays down. Life after death, perhaps; the faculty of wreaking devastation at a word or touch; gifts beyond human will or comprehension, all of them a burden to her; and who can know the end?"
"There shall not be a beginning," I vowed huskily. "I will kill Varduk——"
"Softly, softly. You know that weapons—ordinary weapons—do not even scratch him."