"For the last time,—be warned!" expostulated Dom Sabbat.
"Come forth!" cried Crescentius rushing towards the door. "This place stifles me!" And he unbolted the door and threw it wide open, stepping outside.
The moon was shining brightly from a deep blue azure. Before him stood the old church of St. Damian bathed in the moonlight. The Senator gazed abstractedly at the venerable structure, then he re-entered the charnel-house, where he found the conjurer and his companion employed in placing the body of the excommunicated denizen of Castel San Angelo into a coffin, which they had taken from a pile in the corner. He immediately proffered his assistance and in a short space the task was completed. The coffin was then borne toward the grave, at the edge of which it was laid, while the Dom Sabbat mumbled a strange Requiem over the departed.
This ended, it was laid into its shallow resting place, and speedily covered with earth.
When all was ready for their departure, Dom Sabbat turned to the Senator of Rome, bidding him farewell. Declining the proffered gold, he observed:
"If you are wise, my lord, you will profit by the awful warning you have this night received."
"Who are you?" the Senator questioned abruptly, trying to peer through the cowl which the adept of the black arts had drawn over his face, "since the devils obey your beck?"
The conjurer laughed a soundless laugh.
"Of dominion over devils I am innocent—since I rule no men!"
At the entrance of the churchyard, Crescentius parted from the conjurer and his associate, about whose personality he had not troubled himself, and returned in deep rumination to Castel San Angelo.