When I returned with the mantle the queen was in need of it, for she was not to be distinguished from the nude goddess on the back of the wild boar. I was so ashamed for her, I could not lift my eyes when I handed her the mantle. Ashtoreth laughed heartily at me, and exclaimed:
"Here, Malchus, I will drink to Baphomet from this flask; then you shall drink to me."
She drank first, then handed the flask to me; it was the same one she had presented to me the night before.
I had learned something since then! I knew there were trick flasks with two compartments, which might contain two different kinds of liquor without becoming mixed. If the neck of the flask were turned to the right, one of the compartments would be opened; the contents of the other would flow, were the neck turned to the left.
When the heathen queen placed the flask to her lips I had watched her closely, and had seen that her wrist turned slightly to the right. This movement I took good care to copy when I drank, and, as I had guessed, the wine was deliciously sweet.
I took a good, long pull before removing the flask from my lips.
"Very good wine, isn't it?" observed Ashtoreth.
"A trifle bitter," I replied, making a wry face, upon which she filliped my nose with her finger, and exclaimed, laughingly:
"You don't know what is good, Malchus! The wine in this flask is some of that left from the marriage feast at Cana. You may keep this flask, too; put it with the one I gave you last night."
This remark set the entire blasphemous crew into a roar of merriment.