This was the climax, and Iron Haquin the man to bear the brunt of it. No help was to be expected from the five sucking sorcerers. They were ridden to rags. The last events had crowded so quickly together that the outlaw practically took up the litany where the Rabbi dropped it. He gave it such voice as would have been a surprise to the others, were they in a state to make the observation. The fact is, Iron Haquin was drunk with the cup of revenge. For two pins he would have bearded the fiend. The infernals shrunk from the lash and lather of such magnificent rage expressed in the highest terms of art. They of the pit sucked in their smoke and hushed the outlet of despair. The centre of the courtyard reappeared, air refined itself, victorious sweet scents flung wide their banners. "Go in peace unto your place. Peace be between us and you. Be you ready to come when you are called." This final, formal leave-taking of the spirits, without which no magician worth his salt would ever abandon his circle, wound up what had once looked a serious business. The six could now quit in safety the circles which a moment before had been their only bulwark against perdition. The students were too limp to pay any attention to the giant that had taken their world upon his shoulders. Their little remaining sanity was all bent to the desire to get away from an accursed house. They stumbled out of the front gate, which the outlaw had to open for them, and scattered to the four winds of heaven. The coast being now clear the bandit made for that other door which had played so many parts. On what would the curtain now arise? He opened and discovered the boudoir. A repetition of its last role. The cycle theory was thus effectually disposed of. There was nothing for it but that the door obeyed some arbitrary will. Scarcely its own. The Rabbi was dead, and worse. There remained then only the Jewess. But where was she? The chamber had no outlet. She could in no wise have left it. Our hero ransacked every corner, he upset, and set up, and upset again every priceless piece of furniture, tore down silk and satin, and threw jewels under foot, ground beneath his heel the command of armies, and the price of the honour of queens. At last his eye was arrested by a common glass bottle, he was fascinated by it, he held it to the light, he all but dropped it. It contained the object of his search.