“Of a truth we are undone,” said Ralph; “our master will never more trust us.”
“We are like to be beaten to death with the tempest,” said Walter “Who can stay the power of this evil Spirit, that our mad curiosity has thus let loose?”
Now, luckily, the magician no sooner beheld the tempest than he at once divined the cause of this hubbub of the elements, and with commendable promptitude he proceeded with all speed to the spot where the students lay with the magical volume. Arrived there, he pronounced an incantation, and then by magic means known to himself alone, rapidly stilled the tempest, which the ill-timed curiosity of his pupils had brought forth. In the words of the old chronicle, he “laid the evil spirit, commanding him as a punishment to make a rope of sand to reach the sky.”
Which venture no doubt had a salutary effect upon the spirit, for there is no later mention of any similar antics on its part. We may conclude from this circumstance, that the spirit has found the task assigned it as a punishment, greater than it can discharge, and that it is still labouring away at the sand rope, which is not much nearer reaching the sky than it was when the work first begun.
