“The Great Tarnov Crystal!” repeated Tring. “The Great Tarnov Crystal! . . . Why, that is the stone for which alchemists and workers of magic have been searching these hundreds of years. The Great Tarnov Crystal!” He shouted it almost in high excitement. “Why, man, we have here the greatest scientific treasure of all ages.” He began to skip about in transports as the possibilities of the treasure’s possession leaped into his mind. “And now I understand,” he continued. “Indeed you have been under the hand of a devil if you have been gazing into that thing. Why, do you know that this stone can send a man into a trance in which all manner of truths will be divulged? Do you know that we can learn now for a certainty the very secret that we have been seeking?” And going close to the stone, he gazed into its depths as a thirsty man might gaze into a well of water. There was this curious property of the Great Tarnov Crystal, and perhaps of all great crystals in the world’s history, that it never presented the same vista twice to the man who looked within its depths. Now this may have been due to many things, to the fact that the lights surrounding it were never twice the same, and also perhaps to this, that the crystal had the strange property of reflecting back to the observer the very thoughts that were tucked away deeply in his head. What drew men to the Tarnov Crystal in the beginning was, of course, its beauty, its color, its light, its constantly changing vistas, and besides these, there was that indefinable fascination that all such stones have. Diamonds, as well, possess this fascinating power to a high degree though the diamond is, of course, a small stone, and not large enough to hold the concentrated focus of two eyes for a very long time; the crystal by reason of its size possesses this quality according to its fineness. The Tarnov Crystal was the finest crystal known to the magicians of the Middle Ages. And although magic was frowned upon by scholars and men of science such as astronomers and alchemists, still there was no distinct line between science and magic, with the result that many of these men found themselves practicing magic when they had intended only to make scientific investigations. It was even so with Pan Kreutz, who ordinarily had but little use for magic or the Black Arts in any form—until now he had come entirely under the domination of the student Tring whose enthusiasm had carried him away. “I tell you that I have had enough,” the alchemist repeated now. “I have perjured my soul to obtain this stone and I am ready to return it to its rightful owners. This stone is a thing of wickedness and blood and it has a woeful history, as old perhaps as the world itself.”