g to think about. How
many miles hast thou travelled this day?"

But the pilgrim was too wide awake, for if he had spoken of any number,
bearing no cross upon it, the necromancer would have had him, like a
ball at bando-play. Therefore he answered, as truly as need be, "By the
grace of our Lady, nine."

Now nine is the crossest of all cross numbers, and full to the lip of
all crochets. So the wizard staggered back, and thought, and inquired
again with bravery, "Where can you find a man and wife, one going
up-hill and one going down, and not a word spoken between them?"

"In a cucumber plant," said the modest saint; blushing even to think of
it; and the wizard knew he was done for.

"You have tried me with ungodly questions," continued the honest
pilgrim, with one hand still over his eyes, as he thought of the
feminine cucumber; "and now I will ask you a pure one. To whom of
mankind have you ever done good, since God saw fit to make you?"

The wizard thought, but could quote no one; and he looked at the saint,
and the saint at him, and both their hearts were trembling. "Can you
mention only one?" asked the saint, pointing a piece of the true cross
at him, hoping he might cling to it; "even a little child will do; try
to think of some one."

The earth was rocking beneath their feet, and the palace windows
darkened on them, with a tint of blood, for now the saint was come
inside, hoping to save the wizard.

"If I must tell the pure truth," said the wizard, looking up at the
arches of his windows, "I can tell of only one to whom I ever have done
good."

"One will do; one is quite enough; be quick before the ground opens. The
name of one--and this cross will save you. Lay your thumb on the end of
it."

"Nay, that I cannot do, great saint. The devil have mercy upon me."

All this while the palace was sinking, and blackness coming over them.

"Thou hast all but done for thyself," said the saint, with a glory
burning round his head; "by that last invocation. Yet give us the name
of the one, my friend, if one there be; it will save thee, with the
cross upon thy breast. All is crashing round us; dear brother, who is
that one?"

"My own self," cried the wretched wizard.

"Then there is no help for thee." And with that the honest saint went
upward, and the wizard, and all his palace, and even the crag that bore
it, sank to the bowels of the earth; and over them was nothing left
except a black bog fringed with reed,