cealment from him, for all places are alike
open to him; he sees us and he hears us now.' I asked him where this
being was who saw and heard us. He replied, in a voice of deep
agitation, 'Have I not told you that he lives in the ball below the
cross on the top of St. Paul's, and that he only comes down to take a
walk in the churchyard and get his dinner at the house in the dark
alley? Since that fatal interview with the necromancer,' he continued,
'for such I believe him to be, he is continually dragging me before him
on his mirror, and he not only sees me every moment of the day, but he
reads all my thoughts, and I have a dreadful consciousness that no
action of my life is free from his inspection, and no place can afford
me security from his power.' On my replying that the darkness of the
night would afford him protection from these machinations, he said, 'I
know what you mean, but you are quite mistaken. I have only told you of
the mirror; but in some part of the building which we passed in coming
away, he showed me what he called a great bell, and I heard sounds which
came from it, and which went to it--sounds of laughter, and of anger,
and of pain. There was a dreadful confusion of sounds, and as I
listened, with wonder and affright, he said, 'This is my organ of
hearing; this great bell is in communication with all other bells within
the circle of hieroglyphics, by which every word spoken by those under
my command is made audible to me.' Seeing me look surprised at him, he
said, 'I have not yet told you all, for he practises his spells by
hieroglyphics on walls and houses, and wields his power, like a
detestable tyrant, as he is, over the minds of those whom he has
enchanted, and who are the objects of his constant spite, within the
circle of the hieroglyphics.' I asked him what these hieroglyphics were,
and how he perceived them. He replied, 'Signs and symbols which you, in
your ignorance of their true meaning, have taken for letters and words,
and read, as you have thought, "Day and Martin's and Warren's
blacking."' 'Oh! that is all nonsense!' 'They are only the mysterious
characters which he traces to mark the boundary of his dominion, and by
which he prevents all escape from his tremendous power. How have I
toiled and laboured to get beyond the limit of his influence! Once I
walked for three days and three nights, till I fell down under a wall,
exhausted by fatigue, and dropped asleep; but on awakening I saw the