one bump which might have
told him what was going on just then above his head, instead of
extending his hands towards the girl, he would have done much more
wisely if he had grasped in each hand one of the sacks lying on the
other scale and made off with it somewhere through that dark corridor
which nobody knew of but he himself, under the special protection of the
devil. Just now, however, the devil was evidently not looking after him
as carefully as usual, for he returned to the altar with the girl in his
arms and deposited his load on the altar steps. The girl knelt down.

"Strew over her corn moistened with honey!" whispered old Onucz to the
bridesmaids;--he considered this old custom as of the highest
importance. Possibly it was a symbol of fruitfulness.

Anicza wanted Fatia Negra to bend down to her. She had something to
whisper in his ear. He leant over her as she desired, drew her pretty
face close up to his, and the girl timidly whispered:

"Are you going to take me away under the earth?"

"Are you afraid I shall do so?"

"With you I will go wherever you choose and will fear nothing."

"I take you at your word."

"I don't care. Whither lies the way, to the right or to the left?"

"To the left. Everything which brings luck must be done lefthandedly."

"Is the door underneath the coining-shop?" asked the girl carelessly.

"Yes, if you must know."

"I am ready. Say the oath that I may hear it!"

Fatia Negra repeated his hocus-pocus, kneeling down beside Anicza on the
steps of the altar, and raising his eyes towards the black vault of the
cavern as he recited the words of a new oath, which kept all the
listeners spellbound, so full it was of grisly images and hellish
fancies. So deep indeed was the general attention that nobody observed
in the meantime that, in the dark background formed by the distant walls
of the cavern, a multitude of strange faces were popping up. First two
men descended through the machinery of the mill and then two others
until, gradually, a hundred of them had assembled. They were all armed
and dressed in uniform, but their arms were concealed beneath their
mantles, that they might not glimmer through the darkness. And then they
quietly formed into ranks like supernumeraries on the stage of a theatre
whilst the chief comedian is ending his monologue in front of the
footlights. Only Anicza had observed them. During the whole course of
the oath, she had not once looked at Fatia Ne