“And which do you think it would be?”
“Well, I should have to be satisfied with your body, except in one event.”
“And, pray, what would that be?”
“I might by the exhibition of some special or unaccounted-for power gain such influence over you as to get you to put your conscience at my disposal. Then you would be mine soul and body.”
I was beginning to get vexed, partly because I suppose I saw more truth in what he said than I liked, so I said shortly—
“What do you mean just now by all this?”
“I think our friend, the signor, is the devil himself. I don’t mean any fee-faw-fum. I daresay there are a good many other men as much devils as he is, but he has all the power which great and special practical knowledge gives a man, and he is as full of malice as an egg is full of meat, and he is up to some very big [134] ]villainy and, what is more to the purpose, he has a design upon you.”
“He has done us no harm that I can see.”
“He has done us a great deal of harm; he is persuading you to trust yourself to him, and he is worthy of no trust whatever, d—n him.”
Now this from Jack was rather startling; for he was not in the least prone to use bad language. I never heard “the Englishman’s prayer” from his lips before or since. But his earnestness irritated me more than his profanity surprised me.