"But what need of the angel? Can we not do the business ourselves? My lord Duke, it is now eleven o'clock; give me permission, and by this hour to-morrow morning Sidonia shall be here in a pig-sack. And long ago I would have done this of myself, or stabbed her with my dagger for her late evil deeds, if your Grace had not forbade me so to do at the burial of our gracious lord, Duke Philip II. The devil himself must laugh at our cowardice, that we cannot seize an old withered hag whom a cowboy of ten years old would knock down with his left hand."
To which his Highness answered, "You are foolhardy, young man, to esteem so lightly the power of her evil spirit; for know that it is a mighty and terrible spirit, who could strangle you as easily as he has murdered others, for all your defiant speeches! Therefore we must conquer him by other means; and for this reason I look with hope to the appearance of the angel, who will teach us, perhaps, how to remove the spell from my illustrious race, which Sidonia's inhuman malice has laid on them, making them to perish childless off the face of the earth. If even you succeeded in seizing her, how would this help? She would revenge herself by standing there deaf and mute as a corpse, and would sooner be burned at the stake than speak one word that would remove this great calamity from our house."
Then the knight said, "He would never consent that Diliana should run the great danger of citing a spirit."
Which, when the maiden heard, she grew as red as the young knight when he first entered, and said with a grave and haughty mien—
"Sir knight, who gave you any right over my words or works? There may be other men in whom I place trust as well as you; and speak but another word of the like nature, and I will prove it to you by my acts."
Marry, that was a slap on the mouth to my young knight, who grew as red as scarlet, and cast down his eyes upon his boots, while M. Joel began to demonstrate the magic blood-letting to them as follows—
"See here, young knight, and you, fair virgin, here are two little boxes of white ivory, of the same size and weight; and see, within each of them is suspended a little magnet, both cut from the one loadstone, and round in a circle are all the letters of the alphabet. Now, let each of you take a little box, carry it delicately, and by its help you can converse with each other though you were a hundred miles apart. This sympathy between you is established by means of the magic blood-letting. I make an incision in each of your arms, placed together in the form of a cross, then touch the knight's wound with the blood of the virgin, and the virgin's with the blood of the knight, so will your blood be mingled; and then, if one of you press the wound on the arm, the other will feel the same pressure sympathetically on the arm at the same instant, though ye be ever so far removed from one another. Now suppose that you, fair maiden, feel a pressure suddenly on the wound in your arm, you place the magnet box thereon, and the needle will point of itself, by sympathy, to the letters necessary to form a word, which word will be the same as that found by the magnet of the knight, who will likewise have the box on his arm at the same moment; thus ye can read each other's thoughts instantaneously, and this results entirely from the laws of sympathy, as described by the renowned Abbot Johannes Trithemius, and Hercules de Sunde."
To all this my knight made no answer, but seemed much disturbed. However, the magister ordered him to retire into the next chamber and remove his doublet. Item, he bade the young maiden likewise to take off her robe, seeing that the sleeves were very tight. It was a blue silk bodice she had on, trimmed round the bosom with golden fringe, and a mantle of yellow silk embroidered in violets and gold. Now the maiden was angry at first with the magister for his request, but laughed afterwards, when she thought of Dorothea Stettin, and her absurdities with the doctor.
So she said, "Here, cut open my sleeve, it matters not. I have more dresses with me at my lodging." This my magister does immediately, and draws forth the beautiful arm white as a snow-flake, throws the sleeve back upon the shoulder, and places Diliana with her face turned towards the window, on a seat which his Highness, the Duke, laid for her himself, while he exclaimed earnestly, "Now, Diliana, guard thy soul well from any evil thought!"
Hereupon the poor young virgin began to weep, and said, "Ah! my Lord Duke, I have indeed need to pray for support, but I will look up to the Lord my Saviour, whose strength is made perfect in my weakness. Now the young knight may come, but let me not see him."