Any one conversant in the signs which immediately precede death could have told that he had but a short time to live. The good monk, who was supporting him and breathing words of Christian hope into his ears, left him as the prior and Wilfred entered. The prior took the monk's place, and supported the head of the penitent. "Look," he said, as he raised him upon his arm, "Wilfred of Aescendune, the son of thy late lord." The poor wretch groaned--such a deep hollow groan. "Canst thou forgive me?" he said. "Forgive thee what?" "Tell him all, my son, and ease thy burdened mind." The thrall then spake, in words interrupted by gasps and sighs, which we must needs omit as we piece his narrative together for the benefit of our readers. "It is five years since I fled thy father's face, fearing his wrath, for I had slain his red deer and sold them for filthy lucre. Woe is me! I had better have trusted to his mercy and borne my fitting punishment; but, as Satan tempted me, I fled to the great city, where men are crowded together thick as bees in swarming time, to hide myself amongst many. There I was like to starve, and none gave me to eat, when a Jew who saw my distress, took pity on me and gave me shelter. "His name was Abraham of Toledo, a city far off over the salt sea, whence he had come to our English shores in the hope of gain; and he was mighty in magic arts and in compounding of deadly drugs to slay, or medicines to make alive. I became his servant, for I had nought else to do, and I blew his forge when he mixed strange metals, swept his chamber, mixed his medicines as ordered, and did all an ignorant man might do at his master's bidding." "The wretch! he should be burnt," said the prior, who, like most Englishmen of his day, confounded all such researches with the black art; "didst thou ever see the devil there?" "I did, indeed!"--the prior started--"but it was a Norman fiend, and his name Hugo of Aescendune." "How!" Wilfred exclaimed, as he started violently. "Silence, dear son, thou shalt soon hear," said Father Elphege. "Summon thy courage." "One evening I was mixing some drugs in my master's laboratory, in a recess hidden from the rest of the room by a curtain, which happened to be drawn, when my master entered the room in company with a stranger. "'Here, then, is the drug you seek; but it will be very costly--men must pay dear for vengeance,' said Abraham of Toledo. "'It may not be vengeance, but an obstacle which I wish to remove from my path.' "'That liquid was distilled by myself from many strange plants in far-off Araby; I may never replace it, and it is worth many pieces of gold.' "'Thou shalt have them if thou wilt swear, thou dog of a Jew, that it possesses all the qualities thou hast said. If it fails, look to thyself; I am not one to be played with.' "'The victim who takes but one drop daily shall decline and die within the half of a year; in half that time if the dose be doubled; a quarter if quadrupled.'