m the niche
where he had been hidden.

"Murderer! Fiend! I will kill you!" he cried, and with his dagger bare
in his hand he would have thrown himself upon the marshal. But swifter
than the rush of the young man in his strength there came another from
the door of the inner chamber.

With a deep-throated roar of wholly bestial fury, Astarte the she-wolf
sprang upon Laurence, and, though he sank his dagger twice to the hilt
in her hairy chest, she over-bore him and they fell to the ground with
her teeth gripping his shoulder. Laurence felt the hot life-blood of
the beast spurt forth and mingle with his own. Then a flood of
swirling waters seemed to bear him suddenly away into the unknown.

* * * * *

When Laurence MacKim came to himself he emerged into a chill world in
which he felt somehow infinitely lonely and forsaken. Next he grew
slowly conscious that his feet and arms were bound tightly with cords
that cut painfully into the flesh. Then he realised that he, too, had
taken his place beside the maids upon the altar of iron. Strangely
enough he did not feel afraid nor even wish himself elsewhere. He only
wondered what would happen next.

He opened his eyes and lo! they looked directly into the leering
countenance of the monstrous image. Yet there seemed something
curiously encouraging and even beneficent about the aspect of the
demon. But so often as Gilles de Retz passed the triple array of his
victims with his back to the image, the regard of the sculptured devil
followed him, grim and mocking.

Words of angry altercation came to the ears of Laurence MacKim.

"I tell you," cried the voice of Gilles de Retz, "I will not spare
them. Well nigh had I succeeded. Almost I was young again. I was
tasting the first sweetness of knowledge wide as that of the gods. I
felt the new life stirring within me. But I had not enough of the
blood of innocence, which is the only worthy libation to
Barran-Sathanas, who alone can bestow youth and life."

Then the Lady Sybilla answered him. "I pray you, Gilles de Retz, as
you hope for mercy, slay not these maidens and this youth. Take me,
and bind me, instead, for the sacrifice of death. I have wrought
enough of evil! Take of my blood and work out your purpose. Let me
give you the libation you desire. Gilles de Retz, if ever I have aided
you, grant me this boon now. I beseech you, let these innocents go,
and bind me upon the altar in their places."