"Then for an hour we will proclaim a truce to all our differences. We will pledge the survivor in flowing bowls from vintages of a thousand years. Wine you shall have creating thirst and woman creating desire. That is if you can call her woman that tempted Adam out of Paradise." "To whom do you refer?" "To Lilith, Eve's rival, queen of all damnations!" "Was it for _her_, then, that you sold your soul and swopped an eye with Satan?" "Ha-ha, you have heard that story. It is true that I left my eye in pawn, but it is false that I received one in exchange. This is not an eye at all--this Evil Eye as they call it--whose beam is supposed to blight wherever it falls. In your own person you have tested its perfect harmlessness." He paused, as if to see whether the sailor had swallowed this more than doubtful statement. The latter made no sign. The wizard then proceeded to lift his sinister eyelid, until the fiery stab of the Evil Eye was a second time unveiled. As before it had no effect whatever on Marquard. The magician then lifted his finger to it, and with a twist turned the apparent eye-ball out of its socket. It slipped over the finger that had released it, and in so doing shewed what it really was. It was a _ring_, set with an enormous blazing stone! Yes, this was the fabled Evil Eye, this innocent circlet of gold with its flashing stone. The magician obligingly extended the hand that now wore it, to the end that Marquard might examine it more minutely. As he got accustomed to its baleful glare, he perceived that this was not generated by the gem itself. The gem was hollow, and served merely as a receptacle for something _alive_ that crouched within. From the eyes of this living weevil--or devil--or whatever it was--streamed the poison of ill-effect which the public had thought to proceed from an Evil Eye. Nor were they wrong after all, only that there were two evil eyes, and their owner to boot--instead of one. But even this was only the beginning of the Hungarian's surprises. Having allowed the sailor to gaze long enough upon the ring, he rested the hand that wore it upon a chair. Then with the other hand he just touched the gem at his side. It flew open and the creature that lived in it came forth. She increased in size--the sailor saw that it was a woman--a woman, whose beauty would have blinded the severest eye. She would have seduced an anchorite to dimpled sin. "You see," laughed the Hungarian, "that, if I got no eye from the devil, he gave me a rib out of his side." When she had reached the height of her companion Lilith stopped growing, and sat down upon her chair. The magician seated himself at one hand of her, the sailor at the other, and looked inquiringly towards the vacant place that fronted her. The Hungarian intercepted his glance, and grinned. "Look at the mirror, man," he cried, "there are more guests here--and more august--than you imagine."