He had apparently arrived at some decision, for now--for the first time--he spoke. "Antlers of Belial!! Do I see before me my old friend Marquard?" "Your enemy to the hilts you see." "You must pardon my defective sight which obliged me to call in the aid of science before I recognised you. Who would have thought of seeing you here? But now I know you I shall not readily part with you. You shall sleep under no other roof than mine this night of your home-coming." "Dare you speak thus to _me_, knowing that this day the woman we both loved has died a horrible death at hangman's hands, and all for following the course _you_ set and staked for her?" "Nonsense, my friend. You have been deceived by a chance resemblance, if indeed any could exist between such wrinkles as were smoothed out to-day and a face that made the stars ashamed. I regret to say that I have lost sight of her for many a year--that maiden we both knew and loved; I would give all I have left to give to see her before me as she was. Her waist was slender as the waist of death--I cannot conceive her as blue flame and grey ash. Again I say you have deceived yourself, my friend." "Friend me no friends! What I feel for you is unscabbarded, naked hate." "Death and the judgment! If you do not love me, you _fear_ me, coward that you are!" "Were I the crowning coward--the bye-word and mock of cowards--there would be one man beneath my fear." "And do you mean that I am that man? I challenge you then to accompany me to my castle. It is worth the seeing." "You need not press me. I ask nothing better than your company. You shall tire of me ere I tire of you. Lead, and I will follow you to the fringes of the Pit." "We'll needs ride sabbatical post." He plucked up two charred logs that lay near at hand. He thrust one between the knees of the galley-slave and the other between his own. He uttered a magic word, sharp, pungent, and obeyed. The logs became two stallions, black as grief and fleet as joy. Before Marquard had grasped the fact that he was mounted, they were out of the town. The weather, as we have said, was of the clearest. A train of obscene hags, bound for some witches' frolic, was the only thing that rode the night. They passed it and left it easily in their rear. Their pace, in fact, was a pace to kill. They shook off a mile with every sweat drop. It took them a second to shoot through a forest. They cleared, not one river, but twos and threes at a time; the wind, striving to keep up with them, fell breathless. Huge mountains tossed their grandsire heads and deemed themselves impassable. These also the chargers crossed, and left them shrugging their fat shoulders far behind. But now a peak of peaks appeared--a Babel that overlooked earth, and peered into heaven--would they double that? They reached its summit, but at the instant, with a word from the sorcerer, they were logs again.