he second method, which is surer. It consists in evoking,
just as in Spiritism, the soul of a dead person and sending it to strike
the victim with the prepared spell. The result is the same but the
vehicle is different. There," concluded Des Hermies, "reported with
painstaking exactness, are the confidences which our friend Gevingey
made me this morning."

"And Dr. Johannes cures people poisoned in this manner?" asked Carhaix.

"Yes, Dr. Johannes--to my knowledge--has made inexplicable cures."

"But with what?"

"Gevingey tells me, in this connection, that the doctor celebrates a
sacrifice to the glory of Melchisedek. I haven't the faintest idea what
this sacrifice is, but Gevingey will perhaps enlighten us if he returns
cured."

"In spite of all, I should not be displeased, once in my life to get a
good look at Canon Docre," said Durtal.

"Not I! He is the incarnation of the Accursed on earth!" cried Carhaix,
assisting his friends to put on their overcoats.

He lighted his lantern, and while they were descending the stair, as
Durtal complained of the cold, Des Hermies burst into a laugh.

"If your family had known the magical secrets of the plants, you would
not shiver this way," he said. "It was learned in the sixteenth century
that a child might be immune to heat or cold all his life if his hands
were rubbed with juice of absinth before the twelfth month of his life
had passed. That, you see, is a tempting prescription, less dangerous
than those which Canon Docre abuses."

Once below, after Carhaix had closed the door of his tower, they
hastened their steps, for the north wind swept the square.

"After all," said Des Hermies, "Satanism aside--and yet Satanism also is
a phase of religion--admit that, for two miscreants of our sort, we hold
singularly pious conversations. I hope they will be counted in our
favour up above."

"No merit on our part," replied Durtal, "for what else is there to talk
about? Conversations which do not treat of religion or art are so base
and vain."

CHAPTER XV

The memory of these frightful magisteria kept racing through his head
next day, and, while smoking cigarettes beside the fire, Durtal thought
of Docre and Johannes fighting across Gevingey's back, smiting and
parrying with incantations and exorcisms.

"In the Christian symbolism," he said to himself, "the fish is one of
the representations of Christ. Doubtless the Canon thinks to aggravate
his sacrileges by f