ut her
eyes, so salamander-like'--

"'What is that you say, fellow?' I exclaimed, hastily. Paul was
silent, but began again in a few seconds: 'Yes, Lizzy is a good woman
after all; she said, after she had looked at the coffee grounds, that
there was nothing the matter with Dolly, and that the salamander look
about the eyes came from cracknel-baking or the dancing-room; but, at
the same time, she advised me to remain single, and told me that a
certain good gentleman was in great danger. These salamanders, she
said, are the worst sort of things that the devil employs to lure a
poor human soul to destruction, because they have certain passions--ah,
one must only stand firm and keep God in one's heart--then I myself saw
in the coffee grounds Major O'Malley quite like and natural.'

"I bid the fellow hold his tongue, but you may conceive the feelings
that were awakened in me at this strange discourse of Paul's, whom I
suddenly found initiated into my dark secret, and who so unexpectedly
displayed a knowledge of cabalistic matters, for which he was probably
indebted to the coffee-prophetess. I passed the most uneasy day I ever
had in my life. Paul was not to be got out of the room all that
evening, but was constantly returning and finding something to do.
When it was near midnight, and he was at last obliged to go, he said
softly, as if praying to himself: 'Bear God in thy heart--think of the
salvation of thy soul--and thou wilt resist the enticements of Satan.'

"I cannot describe the manner--I may almost say, the fearful manner--in
which my soul was moved at these simple words of my servant. All my
endeavours to keep myself awake were in vain. I fell into that state
of confused dreaming, which I could not look upon as natural, but as
the operation of some foreign principle. The magical beaming woke me
as usual. Aurora in the full lustre of supernatural beauty, stood
before me, and passionately stretched her arms towards me.
Nevertheless, Paul's pious words shone in my soul as if written there
with letters of fire. 'Depart, thou seductive birth of hell!' I cried,
when the terrible O'Malley, now of a gigantic stature, rose before me,
and piercing me with eyes, from which an infernal fire was flashing,
howled out: 'Resist not--poor atom of humanity. Thou hast become
ours!' My courage could have withstood the frightful aspect of the
most hideous spectre, but I lost my senses at the sight of O'Malley,
and fell to t