“Speak,” said Stephen, who had been watching him. “We are all in a sort doctors here.” “I would say then”--Thomas rushed at it as one putting out his life’s belief at the stake--“that these lower shapes in the bordure may not be so much hellish and malignant as models and patterns upon which John has tricked out and embellished his proper devils among the swine above there!” “And that would signify?” said Roger of Salerno sharply. “In my poor judgment, that he may have seen such shapes--without help of drugs.” “Now who--_who_”--said John of Burgos, after a round and unregarded oath--“has made thee so wise of a sudden, my Doubter?” “I wise? God forbid! Only John, remember--one winter six years ago--the snowflakes melting on your sleeve at the cookhouse-door. You showed me them through a little crystal, that made small things larger.” “Yes. The Moors call such a glass the Eye of Allah,” John confirmed. “You showed me them melting--six-sided. You called them, then, your patterns.” “True. Snow-flakes melt six-sided. I have used them for diaper-work often.” “Melting snow-flakes as seen through a glass? By art optical?” the Friar asked. “Art optical? _I_ have never heard!” Roger of Salerno cried. “John,” said the Abbot of St. Illod’s commandingly, “was it--is it so?” “In some sort,” John replied, “Thomas has the right of it. Those shapes in the bordure were my workshop-patterns for the devils above. In _my_ craft, Salerno, we dare not drug. It kills hand and eye. My shapes are to be seen honestly, in nature.” The Abbot drew a bowl of rose-water towards him. “When I was prisoner with--with the Saracens after Mansura,” he began, turning up the fold of his long sleeve, “there were certain magicians--physicians--who could show--” he dipped his third finger delicately in the water--“all the firmament of Hell, as it were, in--” he shook off one drop from his polished nail on to the polished table--“even such a supernaculum as this.” “But it must be foul water--not clean,” said John. “Show us then--all--all,” said Stephen. “I would make sure--once more.” The Abbot’s voice was official. John drew from his bosom a stamped leather box, some six or eight inches long, wherein, bedded on faded velvet, lay what looked like silver-bound compasses of old box-wood, with a screw at the head which opened or closed the legs to minute fractions. The legs terminated, not in points, but spoon-shapedly, one spatula pierced with a metal-lined hole less than a quarter of an inch across, the other with a half-inch hole. Into this latter John, after carefully wiping with a silk rag, slipped a metal cylinder that carried glass or crystal, it seemed, at each end. “Ah! Art optic!” said the Friar. “But what is that beneath it?” It was a small swivelling sheet of polished silver no bigger than a florin, which caught the light and concentrated it on the lesser hole. John adjusted it without the Friar’s proffered help.