he castle, and forthwith a whole column of armed men
marched into the court, led by the three pages, and headed by the
seneschal in grey mantle and cap. In walked the strangers, and passed
between two ranks of men, or rather rats, the appearance of which
raised a suspicion that they were spirits or elves.

The friar, it should be noticed, was the great philosopher and chemist
who invented gunpowder, and made many other wonderful discoveries, for
which he was in danger of being burnt as a wizard and necromancer.

The friar, followed by his companions, found entrance to a room, where
they expected to meet the great enchanter Michael, but instead of him
they beheld an old woman, so busily engaged with something on the
fire, that she scarcely deigned to notice their entrance. She had a
wooden tube, with which she blew up the fire, and then spoke through
it, saying:

"Sotter, sotter, my wee pan,
To the spirit gin ye can;
When the scum turns blue,
And the blood bells through,
There's something aneath that will change the man."

The crone continued her orgies, one time blowing her fire, again
stirring the liquid in the caldron, and then making it run from the
end of a stick that she might note its gelidity. All her operations
were being gone through to call up certain familiar spirits whose
presence she desired.

In another apartment sat Michael Scott. He wore a turban of crimson
velvet, ornamented with mystic figures in gold, and on the front of it
was a dazzling star. His eyes were bright and piercing, resembling
those of a serpent. He was stout-made, and had a strong bushy beard,
turning grey. On beholding Charlie Scott (he alone entered the
wizard's _sanctum sanctorum_), the wizard stamped three times on the
floor, and in a moment Prim, Prig, and Pricker stood beside him.
"Work, master, work--what work now?" demanded they. "Take that burly
housebreaker, bind him, and put him to the test," were the
instructions they received. When the elves were about to seize
Charlie, he drew his sword, and thrust out right and left, but his
blade did nothing more than whistle through vacancy. In an instant he
was thrown down and bound with cords. The master and his familiars
then had a conversation in Latin (the language best understood by
Satan and his emissaries) concerning the prisoner's baptism. They
stripped him, and were about to begin a painful operation, when
Charlie, bound though he was, succeeded in c