asts out
to wile thee to destruction. He knows the weaknesses of all our hearts;
he has seen how fond you are of going up things. Where should our Gerard
procure a rope? how fasten it in the sky like this? It is not in nature.
Holy saints protect us this night, for hell is abroad."

"Stuff!" said the dwarf; "the way to hell is down, and this rope leads
up. I never had the luck to go up such a long rope. It may be years ere
I fall in with such a long rope all ready for me. As well be knocked on
the head at once as never know happiness."

And he sprung on to the rope with a cry of delight, as a cat jumps with
a mew on to a table where fish is. All the gymnast was on fire; and the
only concession Kate could gain from him was permission to fasten the
lantern on his neck first.

"A light scares the ill spirits," said she.

And so, with his huge arms, and his legs like feathers, Giles went up
the rope faster than his brother came down it. The light at the nape of
his neck made a glowworm of him. His sister watched his progress, with
trembling anxiety. Suddenly a female figure started out of the solid
masonry, and came flying at her with more than mortal velocity.

Kate uttered a feeble cry. It was all she could, for her tongue clove to
her palate with terror. Then she dropped her crutches, and sank upon her
knees, hiding her face and moaning:

"Take my body, but spare my soul!"

Margaret (panting). "Why, it is a woman!"

Kate (quivering). "Why, it is a woman!"

Margaret. "How you scared me!"

Kate. "I am scared enough myself. Oh! oh! oh!"

"This is strange! But the fiery-headed thing? Yet it was with you, and
you are harmless! But why are you here at this time of night?"

"Nay, why are YOU?"

"Perhaps we are on the same errand? Ah! you are his good sister, Kate!"

"And you are Margaret Brandt."

"Yes.

"All the better. You love him; you are here. Then Giles was right. He
has won free."

Gerard came forward, and put the question at rest. But all further
explanation was cut short by a horrible unearthly noise, like a
sepulchre ventriloquizing:

"PARCHMENT!--PARCHMENT!--PARCHMENT!"

At each repetition, it rose in intensity. They looked up, and there was
the dwarf, with his hands full of parchments, and his face lighted with
fiendish joy and lurid with diabolical fire. The light being at his
neck, a more infernal "transparency" never startled mortal eye. With the
word, the awful imp hurled parchment at th