"Cannot the Fiend as well as God live incarnate in human clay? Is not the earth the meeting ground of Heaven and Hell? Why should not Basil, the Grand Chamberlain, be Hell's incarnation?"-- "What then must I do to deserve the crimson aureole?" "Espouse the cause of him who rules the shadows. He will give to you what your soul desires. One of the shadowy congregation that rules the world through fear, make quick wings for Time, that crawls through eternity like a monstrous snake, while with starved desire your eyes glare at the fleeting things of life--dominion, power and love, that you may snatch from fate! Only by becoming one of us can your soul slake its thirst. Speak--for my time is brief--" When Basil turned towards the bent form of the speaker his gaze fell upon a gleaming knife which Bessarion had produced from under the loose folds of his gown. For a moment the two stood face to face. Neither spoke, each seemingly intent upon fathoming the thoughts of the other. The wind hissed and screamed through the corridors of the Colosseum. It was Basil who broke the silence. "What is it, you want?" "Bare your left arm!" There was a natural hollow in the rock, that the weather had scooped out in the stone altar. Basil obeyed. The gibbering voice rose again above the silence. "Hold it over the basin!" The lightnings twisted and streamed like silvery adders through the dark vaults of the heavens, and terrific peals of thunder shook the shuddering world in its foundations. The bent form raised the knife. Three drops of blood dripped, one by one, into the hollow of the stone. Bessarion chanted some words in an unintelligible jargon as, with a claw-like hand, he bound up the wound in Basil's arm. "At midnight--in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus--you will stand face to face with the Presence," the apparition spoke once more. The next moment, after a fantastic salutation, he had vanished, as if the earth had swallowed him, behind a projecting rock. Basil remained for a time in deep rumination. The Molossian hound rose up from the ground as soon as the adept of the black arts had disappeared, and, sitting on its haunches, gazed inquisitively into its master's face. Suddenly it uttered a growl. At the next moment the misshapen form of an African Moor crouched at the feet of the Grand Chamberlain. Noiselessly and swiftly as a panther he had sped through the waste spaces of the amphitheatre, and even Basil could not overcome a feeling of revulsion as he gazed into the hairy, bestial features of Daoud, whom he employed when secrecy and despatch were essential to the success of a venture. Red inflamed eyelids gleamed from a face whose cadaverous tints seemed enhanced by wiry black hair that hung in disordered strands from under a broad Spanish hat. Daoud was undersized in stature, but possessed prodigious strength, and the size of his hands argued little in favor of him who had incurred the disfavor of his master or his own.