The spirit hearing this, answered Faustus: "Thou knowest that all this is in vain for thee to ask. I know that thou art sorry for what thou hast done, but it availeth thee not; for I will tear thee in a thousand pieces if thou change not thy opinions." And hereat he vanished away. Whereat Faustus, all sorrowful that he had put forth such a question, fell to weeping and to howling bitterly, not for his sins towards God, but that the devil was departed from him so suddenly in such a rage. And being in this perplexity, he was suddenly taken with such extreme cold, as if he would have frozen in the place where he sat, in which the greatest devil in hell appeared unto him, with certain of his hideous and infernal company, in most ugly shapes, that it was impossible to think upon; and traversing the chamber round about where Faustus sat, Faustus thought to himself, "Now are they come for me, though my time be not come, and that because I have asked such questions of my servant Mephistophiles." At whose cogitations the chiefest devil, which was the lord unto whom he gave his soul, that was Lucifer, spake in this sort: "Faustus, I have seen thy thoughts, which are not as thou hast vowed unto me, by the virtue of this letter [and showed him the obligation which he had written with his own blood]; wherefore I am come to visit thee, and to show thee some of our hellish pastimes, in hope that will draw and confirm thy mind a little more steadfast unto us." "Content," quoth Faustus: "go to, let me see what pastime you can make."