ile, the fog was
creeping on, and the octopus tentacles were gripping tighter. In his
emergency there rose the countenance of Miss Ogilvy's dying counsel,
welcome and unexpected as light of the moon to a lost traveller on a
cloud-clothed night. What had she told him to do? To resist Madame
Riennes. He had tried that with lamentable results. To invoke the help
of religion. He had tried that with strictly negative results; the
Powers above did not seem inclined to intervene in this private affair.
To appeal to the Pasteur. That he had not tried but, unpromising as the
venture seemed to be, by Jove! he would. In his imminent peril there
was nothing to which he would have appealed, even Mumbo-Jumbo itself if
it gave him the slightest hope of protection from Madame Riennes.

Accordingly, when they went to the observatory that night, instead of
applying his eye to the telescope in the accustomed fashion, Godfrey
rushed at the business like a bull at a gate. At first the Pasteur was
entirely confused, especially as Godfrey spoke in English, which the
preceptor must translate into French in his own mind. By degrees,
however, he became extraordinarily interested, so much so that he let
the new pipe go out, and what was very rare with him, except in the
most moving passages of his own sermons, pushed the blue spectacles
from his high nose upwards, till they caught upon the patch of grizzled
hair which remained upon his bald head.

"Ah!" he said, answering in French, which by now Godfrey understood
fairly well, "this is truly exciting; at last I come in touch with the
thing. Know, Godfrey, that you furnish me with a great occasion. Long
have I studied this, what you call it--demonology. Of it I know much,
though not from actual touch therewith."

Then he began to talk of gnosticism, and witchcraft, and _Incubi_, and
_Succubi_, and the developments of modern spiritualism, till Godfrey
was quite bewildered. At length he paused, relit the new pipe, and said:

"These matters we will study afterwards; they are, I assure you, most
entertaining. Meanwhile, we have to deal with your Madame Riennes. All
right, oh! quite all right. I will be her match. She will not make _me_
kiss her, no, not at all, not at all! Be tranquil, young friend, if
to-morrow you feel the impulse to go, go you shall, but I will go with
you. Then we will see. Now to bed and sleep well. For me, I must study;
I have many books on this subject, and there are points