“’Tis well for ye that this fellow is dead now, and can’t return hither for to continue his evil deeds. If he had been a _fetiscero_ of the common sort, they’d not have burnt him. The powder-mills should have been punishment enough. Ye have seen those convicted of practising magic working there, I wouldn’t wonder?” “Those that bear gowns of yellow stuff, with a red cross before and behind?” asked I. “They do so. But ye see, he was too great a person for that. The Holy Office must needs put him to death, and he is dead now, so he needn’t trouble ye.” “But if his soul was able to leave his body in life, why can’t it wander at its will now, sir?” I asked him, “or maybe be conjured up by his fellows, for to assist ’em in their unlawful arts?” This I said more to perceive what he would say than because I believed that such a thing should be likely to happen, though indeed many of our wisest and most ingenious philosophers concur in ascribing extraordinary powers (conferred, of course, by the author of evil), to the practisers of witchcraft. My friend’s countenance took an air of trouble, and then cleared on a sudden. “Sure, I’ll exorcise the evil spirit for ye, my lad,” and with that he walked to and fro in the chamber, and muttered his barbarous Latin _hocus-pocus_ in all the four corners thereof, and then approached me, and would have made I know not what superstitious ceremonies over me, but that I besought him that he would not force upon me idolatrous rites when I was too feeble to resist him. And upon this he ceased his mummery, and departed with the _alcaide_, that had been bowing and muttering mighty devoutly in concert with him.