in motion, they
seemed to be alive; and certainly the colors in them were in motion.
They were very brilliant and sparkling, and of every tint, and they were
never still, but flowed to and fro in rich tides which met and broke and
flashed out dainty explosions of enchanting color. I think it was most
like opals washing about in waves and flashing out their splendid fires.
But there is nothing to compare the wine with. We drank it, and felt a
strange and witching ecstasy as of heaven go stealing through us, and
Seppi's eyes filled and he said worshipingly:

"We shall be there some day, and then--"

He glanced furtively at Satan, and I think he hoped Satan would say,
"Yes, you will be there some day," but Satan seemed to be thinking about
something else, and said nothing. This made me feel ghastly, for I knew
he had heard; nothing, spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi
looked distressed, and did not finish his remark. The goblets rose
and clove their way into the sky, a triplet of radiant sundogs, and
disappeared. Why didn't they stay? It seemed a bad sign, and depressed
me. Should I ever see mine again? Would Seppi ever see his?

Chapter 9

It was wonderful, the mastery Satan had over time and distance. For him
they did not exist. He called them human inventions, and said they were
artificialities. We often went to the most distant parts of the globe
with him, and stayed weeks and months, and yet were gone only a fraction
of a second, as a rule. You could prove it by the clock. One day when
our people were in such awful distress because the witch commission were
afraid to proceed against the astrologer and Father Peter's household,
or against any, indeed, but the poor and the friendless, they lost
patience and took to witch-hunting on their own score, and began to
chase a born lady who was known to have the habit of curing people by
devilish arts, such as bathing them, washing them, and nourishing them
instead of bleeding them and purging them through the ministrations of a
barber-surgeon in the proper way. She came flying down, with the howling
and cursing mob after her, and tried to take refuge in houses, but the
doors were shut in her face. They chased her more than half an hour, we
following to see it, and at last she was exhausted and fell, and they
caught her. They dragged her to a tree and threw a rope over the limb,
and began to make a noose in it, some holding her, meantime, and she
crying and b