“I have not always been what I now appear. I was well born, although poor, and had served in my country’s battles, not without reputation. I loved the daughter of a baron, of high family and large estates, whose castle, on the Aar, stood near the dwelling of my father. Thy tale of love is mine, thus far. Although loved in return, and loving—O! spirit of my injured Thekla!—deeper, far deeper than mortal, whose blood burned not like mine, could love; she was torn from me—me, who would have died for her; whose only aim in life was to approve myself worthy of her—and whose love was mine alone—torn from me, and dragged, an unwilling, wretched sacrifice, to the castle of a rich nobleman of our country. Here, her tears and visible decay, instead of moving compassion in the heart of her husband, rendered him jealous and morose. On one occasion, he struck her to the earth in furious rage—struck her, do you mark me?—aye, inflicted a blow on that fair breast which I would have braved hell to defend! It caused her death, for she was pregnant—she died that day. I—yon insulted heaven knows how deeply!—I avenged her, and the steel which struck the life blow to his heart, never has been, and never shall be cleansed. Look at it—I keep it as a memorial of most holy revenge!” Rudenfranck drew from his vest a broad, sharp dagger, and threw it on the table before Adolf, who saw with horror that the blade and hilt were encrusted with the stains of long-spilled blood. “I was forced to quit Germany, and wandered through Spain an aimless, hopeless man. Here I became acquainted with Count Falkenhelm. He was in danger from the Inquisition, and I aided his escape from their toils. A hater of mankind, naught, save the knowledge of how bitter an enmity Falkenhelm bore to it, prompted me to rescue him from the snare. A murder was committed in Alsace. Letters came to me from Falkenhelm, desiring me to hasten to him, and ere he met the inevitable doom of his crime, to receive a last legacy which he wished to bequeath me. “I hastened to him, and on the night ere he was executed, he imparted to me this secret: that, deep within these forests, the mighty treasures of a long buried sage and necromancer, whose power could control the elements, and the spirits of fire, lay hidden. These were the treasures of Bructorix, borne from Germany by magic spells. They were guarded by potent spirits of hell. To me did he commit this knowledge, together with those books, at which you have often wondered, and this spell, which commands the world of demons.”