"Be it so, then: as soon as you are strong again, you will go to your duty; till then, I will see that you want for nothing." "Nor I, my good fellow. Come to me if you do, and I will be your help," said Amine. "You have suffered much, but we will do what we can to make you forget it." "Very good! very kind!" replied Schriften, surveying the lovely face and figure of Amine. After a time, shrugging up his shoulders, he added--"A pity! Yes it is!--Must be, though." "Farewell," continued Amine, holding out her hand to Schriften. The man took it, and a cold shudder went to her heart; but she, expecting such a result, would not appear to feel it. Schriften held her hand for a second or two in his own, looking at it earnestly, and then at Amine's face.--"So fair, so good! Mynheer Vanderdecken, I thank you. Lady, may Heaven preserve you!"--Then, squeezing the hand of Amine which he had not released, Schriften hastened out of the cabin. So great was the sudden icy shock which passed through Amine's frame when Schriften pressed her hand, that when with difficulty she gained the sofa she fell upon it. After remaining with her hand pressed against her heart for some time, during which Philip bent over her, she said in a breathless voice, "That creature must be supernatural, I am sure of it, I am now convinced.--Well," continued she, after a pause of some little while, "all the better, if we can make him a friend; and if I can I will." "But think you, Amine, that those who are not of this world have feelings of kindness, gratitude, and ill-will, as we have? Can they be made subservient?" "Most surely so. If they have ill-will, as we know they have, they must also be endowed with the better feelings. Why are there good and evil intelligences? They may have disencumbered themselves of their mortal clay, but the soul must be the same. A soul without feeling were no soul at all. The soul is active in this world and must be so in the next. If angels can pity, they must feel like us. If demons can vex, they must feel like us. Our feelings change, then why not theirs? Without feelings, there were no heaven, no hell. Here our souls are confined, cribbed, and overladen, borne down by the heavy flesh by which they are, for the time, polluted; but the soul that has winged its flight from clay is, I think, not one jot more pure, more bright, or more perfect than those within ourselves. Can they be made subservient, say you! Yes! they can; they can be forced, when mortals possess the means and power. The evil-inclined may be forced to good, as well as to evil. It is not the good and perfect spirits that we subject by art, but those that are inclined to wrong. It is over them that mortals have the power. Our arts have no power over the perfect spirits, but over those which are ever working evil, and which are bound to obey and do good, if those who master them require it." "You still resort to forbidden arts, Amine. Is that right?"