“Follow, and obey me.”
Many and winding were the streets through which the good knight followed his mysterious guide. At last they reached a dark, dismal-looking house, apparently without any inhabitant. The guide pressed his foot on the doorstep, and the door slowly opened, closing again as the knight followed the old man into the house. All was darkness, but the guide seized the knight’s hand and led him up the tottering staircase to a large room, in which were many strange books and figures of men and animals, interspersed with symbolic emblems of triangles and circles, whose meaning was known to that aged man alone. In the midst of the room was a table, on which burned a lamp without a wick or a reservoir of oil, for it fed on a vapor that was lighter than air, and was invisible to the eye. The old man spoke some words, to the knight unknown; in a moment the floor clave asunder, and a bath, on whose sides the same mystic symbols were written as on the walls of the room, arose from beneath.
“Prepare to bathe,” said the old man, opening a book on the table, and taking a bright mirror from a casket.
No sooner had the knight entered the bath than the old man gave him a mirror and bid him look into it.
“What seest thou?” asked he of the knight.
“I see my own chamber; my wife is there, and Maleficus, the greatest sorcerer in Rome.”
“What does the sorcerer?”
“He kneads wax and other ingredients; he hath made a figure of me, and written under it my name; even now he fastens it against the wall of my chamber.”
“Look again,” said the old man; “what does he?”
“He takes a bow; he fits an arrow to the string; he aims at the effigy.”