But Hampton shook his head, and retreated a step.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Hampton cautiously touched a coin. It was cool. He weighed it in his hand, and rung it on the table. It was full weight and true ring. Then he went down on his hands and knees, and began to gather up the guineas with feverish haste.
“Are you satisfied?” demanded Satan.
“Completely, your majesty.”
“Then to business. By-the-way, have you anything to drink in the house?”
“There is some Old Jamaica in the cupboard.”
“Excellent. I am as thirsty as a Puritan on election-day,” said the devil, seating himself at the table and negligently flinging his mantle back over his shoulder.
Hampton brought a decanter and a couple of glasses from the cupboard, filled one and passed it to his infernal guest, who tasted it, and smacked his lips with the air of a connoisseur. Hampton watched every gesture. “Does your excellency not find it to his taste?” he ventured to ask.
“H’m, I have drunk worse; but let me show you how to make a salamander,” replied Satan, touching the lighted end of the taper to the liquor, which instantly burst into a spectral blue flame. The fiend then raised the tankard, glanced approvingly at the blaze—which to Hampton’s disordered intellect resembled an adder’s forked and agile tongue—nodded, and said, patronizingly, “To our better acquaintance.” He then quaffed the contents at a single gulp.