THE SECRETS OF ALBERTUS MAGNUS "A translation from the German and the Latin," explained Jager. "Printed, I think, in New York. This book is full of wisdom, although I wonder if it is evil, unlawful wisdom." "I don't care if it is." Lanark almost snatched the book. "Any weapon must be used. And I doubt if Albertus Magnus was evil. Wasn't he a churchman, and didn't he teach Saint Thomas Aquinas?" He leafed through the beginning of the book. "Here's a charm, Jager, to be spoken in the name of God. That doesn't sound unholy." "Satan can recite scripture to his own ends," misquoted Jager. "I don't remember who said that, but----" "Shakespeare said it, or something very like it," Lanark informed him. "Look here, Jager, farther on. Here's a spell against witchcraft and evil spirits." "I have counted at least thirty such in that book," responded the other. "Are you coming to believe in them, sir?" Lanark looked up from the page. His face was earnest and, in a way, humble. "I'm constrained to believe in many unbelievable things. If my experience tonight truly befell me, then I must believe in charms of safety. Supernatural evil like that must have its contrary supernatural good." Jager pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and smiled in his beard. "I have heard it told," he said, "that charms and spells work only when one believes in them." "You sound confident of that, at least," Lanark smiled back. "Maybe you will help me, after all." "Maybe I will." The two gazed into each other's eyes, and then their hands came out, at the same moment. Lanark's lean fingers crushed Jager's coarser ones. "Let's be gone," urged Lanark at once, but the preacher shook his head emphatically. "Slowly, slowly," he temporized. "Cool your spirit, and take council. He that ruleth his temper is greater than he that taketh a city." Once more he put out his hand for the cream-colored volume of Albertus Magnus, and began to search through it. "Do you think to comfort me from that book?" asked Lanark. "It has more than comfort," Jager assured him. "It has guidance." He found what he was looking for, pulled down his spectacles again, and read aloud: "'Two wicked eyes have overshadowed me, but three other eyes are overshadowing me--the one of God the Father, the second of God the Son, the third of God the Holy Spirit; they watch my body and soul, my blood and bone; I shall be protected in the name of God.'" His voice was that of a prayerful man reading Scripture, and Lanark felt moved despite himself. Jager closed the book gently and kept it in his hand.