"Hola? master gaff topsail, and have you found the truth of what I once told you, that two can play in a game of brag? Come, we are surely quits by this time. Let bygones be bygones, and let us adjust our contra accounts. You hold on your side what is of value to me, and I on my side what is of value to you. Exchange is no robbery. Cast me the Ring across the stream, and Lisalda shall join you at Behobia." "Lisalda, do you say? And do you really think to befool me with a golem, in the making of which I myself had a hand? Lisalda, I know, is dead. By this hand she died, and I would cut it from me were it not that the bloody crust on it is the only relic of her that remains to me." "Madman, you rave! Oh this I never dreamed of, that his reason should wander so untimely. Pull yourself together, man. 'Tis no golem that stands beside me. 'Tis your own Lisalda,--your cutest medicine--could I but get you to take it. Oh, be but for an hour sane, and then put eternity out of joint if you will! Again I say, the Ring across the stream, and take Lisalda in exchange; that turns the scale against your immortal soul!" "Never waste your lies on me, man! 'Tis nothing but a golem that you seek to palm off upon me. Lisalda, I know too well, is dead,--by the token that these same impious hands that snatched her into darkness have just smothered her into a heathen grave. I had thought to have bedded her in other guise, but it seems my fondest star had never appraised me as so worthy. Take away your golem, and I shall keep the devil's autograph."