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or results. Merlin said: "If any labor of mortal might break the spell that binds these waters, this which I have but just essayed had done it. It has failed; whereby I do now know that that which I had feared is a truth established; the sign of this failure is, that the most potent spirit known to the magicians of the East, and whose name none may utter and live, has laid his spell upon this well. The mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can penetrate the secret of that spell, and without that secret none can break it. The water will flow no more forever, good Father. I have done what man could. Suffer me to go." Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of a consternation. He turned to me with the signs of it in his face, and said: "Ye have heard him. Is it true?" "Part of it is." "Not all, then, not all! What part is true?" "That that spirit with the Russian name has put his spell upon the well." "God's wounds, then are we ruined!" "Possibly." "But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?" "That is it." "Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none can break the spell--" "Yes, when he says that, he says what isn't necessarily true. There are conditions under which an effort to break it may have some chance--that is, some small, some trifling chance--of success." "The conditions--" "Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I want the well and the surroundings for the space of half a mile, entirely to myself from sunset to-day until I remove the ban--and nobody allowed to cross the ground but by my authority." "Are these all?" "Yes." "And you have no fear to try?" "Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one may also succeed. One can try, and I am ready to chance it. I have my conditions?" "These and all others ye may name. I will issue commandment to that effect." "Wait," said Merlin, with an evil smile. "Ye wit that he that would break this spell must know that spirit's name?" "Yes, I know his name." "And wit you also that to know it skills not of itself, but ye must likewise pronounce it? Ha-ha! Knew ye that?" "Yes, I knew that, too." "You had that knowledge! Art a fool? Are ye minded to utter that name and die?" "Utter it? Why certainly. I would utter it if it was Welsh." "Ye are even a dead man, then; and I go to tell Arthur." "That's all right. Take your gripsack and get along. The thing for _you_ to do is to g
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