Had the worthy man been versed in the science of chemistry, he would have known that there are substances which absorb, and consume, each other. For instance: argentum vivum will dissipate aurum; and aqua fortis will consume silver as will a starving cow barley. This is called occulta qualitas.
The citizens of Madgeburg, however, are not clever enough to comprehend matters so transcendental in character. I was summoned to appear before the mayor, who, being father-in-law to a doctor, sentenced me, out of spite, to be flogged in public.
This did not suit me at all, so I said to myself: "Now, friend Behoric, I have been content to occupy your carcass without murmuring, so long as nothing more was required of me than to stuff it with liver-pasties and oysters; but, when it comes to having the hide tickled with a cat-o'-nine tails, then you had better come back into it!"
I was already bound to the pillory and the executioner had bared my back, revealing the marks of former scourging—of which I could remember nothing as they were on Behoric's body.
When the executioner saw that the whip would not be new to my blood-comrade's hide, he sent for a heavier scourge, the ends of which terminated with barbed nails.
"Now, Behoric," I said, "you must take this flogging yourself."
My hands being bound together, I had no difficulty turning the ring on my little finger. I had given it but one turn, when, to my great joy, I found myself in my own body, in my casemate in Ehrenbreitstein fortress; and before me stood his honor, here, with an empty fire-ball in one hand; in the other, what he called the "proofs of my treason."
I guessed at once what my blood-comrade had been doing, what crime he had committed while occupying my body.
The Frenchmen, who are leagued with the Bocksritter, had sent Behoric to the fortress, to take my place, and inform them what was going on in here. When he found that his crime had been discovered by his honor, the mayor, he said to himself: "It is time for Belphegor to return to his body;" and, as it happened, he turned his ring at the same moment I turned the one on my finger.
I can imagine his consternation when he found himself in the pillory in Madgeburg, with his back bared for the scourge; and I have to laugh every time I think of the grimaces he must have made when the barbed nails cut into his scarred hide!