t--a fiend, indeed, yet not of the upper air."

"An Indian?"

"I know not what other name to choose. A savage surely, yet possessing
a skin strangely fair in the sheen for one of the red race."

My roving, unsatisfied eyes met those of De Noyan.

"Blessed Mother!" he ejaculated with a short, uneasy laugh. "I never
would have thought it in the night. Holy Saints preserve me, if I was
ever more a child! Yet now the dawn brings me new heart of courage,
and I would not swear but Eloise may be right."

"And you, friend Cairnes?" In a few, brief English sentences I retold
to the sectary this opinion expressed by Madame. "Does your mind agree
with ours?"

He stared at me gloomily, his hands knotting into each other, and his
lips moving oddly ere he found speech.

"Nay," he muttered at last, "you know little about such matters. I
tell you again that it was the Devil my eyes saw. Twice have I looked
upon him, and each time, in response to prayer, has the good Lord
delivered His servant from the bondage of sin, the snares of the
fowler. Not by carnal weapons of the flesh are we bidden to overcome,
but by spiritual wrestling; even as did he of old wrestle with the
angel, are we to master the adversary of souls."

"Madame possesses that also," and I pointed to the rosary at her white
throat, "by which she is able to resist the contamination of evil."

He sniffed disdainfully, his coarse red hair appearing to bristle all
over his bullet head.

"'T is a foul device designed to rob men of the true power of prayer,"
he declared angrily. "I say to you, it was the voice of prayer which
caused that foul fiend to fly away to his own. The prayer of the
righteous availeth much."

"True, friend," I admitted as he paused for breath, amused to behold a
man thus played upon. "If it is a comfort to you, we all confess it
was your voice which put an end to the dancing. Yet if there is a time
for prayer, so there is time also for action, and the latter must be
here now. Whatever adventure awaits us before nightfall, we shall meet
it no less bravely if we first have food. So let us break our fast,
and depart from this accursed spot."

It was not a cheerful meal, our nerves being still at high tension, and
we partook more from duty than any feeling of enjoyment. I must except
the old Puritan, however, who would have eaten, I believe, had that
same figure been dancing at his elbow. Many anxious looks were cast
upward at