Page:Weird Tales Volume 11 Number 06 (1928-06).djvu/16

tell you that if ever I thought I must carry out my mother's wish, I think so no longer. When I come of age I go to Visby Castle. I do not remain here."

Then he strode out, leaving anger and bewilderment behind, yet he was a little anxious at the thought of Father Sebastian's face. The large, light gray eyes had scrutinized him in a new way, not with zeal, not with wounded affection, but with an icy, dangerous sort of interest.

Erik was no sooner back in his white-washed cell than there was a swift step in the corridor and a key turned in the lock. The jailers! He beat and kicked on the door, shouting imperiously that he, the Count of Visby, demanded to be let free. When he had exhausted himself, a chilly voice came from the other side. Father Sebastian bade him go to bed and substitute penitential prayers for supper; then he went away hurriedly lest he should betray the tears he was shedding, bitter tears over the long years of soul-saving whose work had been undone in a month.

To bed! Erik looked at the narrow window high up and tested his climbing skill. Yes, he could perch up there. It was on the third floor; a combination of ledges on the outside wall could support daring feet to the ground. But as he looked down he grew dizzy, nauseated. Impossible!

He threw himself on the pallet. If he could only go to sleep! There had been a promise. The long black lashes would not stay down. He turned and fretted. The bell tolled twelve before the warm weariness of approaching sleep flowed through his body.

Then he thought he was awakened by flutes, and that the little fountain-statue from the garden was alive and sitting near him, but golden, not gray, and with clear laughing features, short stubby horns half hidden in curls, ears mischievously pointed. It beckoned to him, and he followed it without the slightest fear, through the narrow window and down the perilous ledges. Without exactly knowing how, he found himself at Lynas. As if in a lovely haze he saw Earl Michael, and there were dancing and music, food and wine, while Karin hovered over her guitar. Yet all was misty and brief and faded away in a troubled sleep.

He was still asleep when Father Sebastian came into the cell. The monk went whiter at the sight of him, and stepped back into the corridor.

"Is he there?" whispered Father Laurence.

"He is, but he was just as surely gone when I came in the night. He must be watched today. It is best to let him run free and see what the evil spirit will prompt him to do."

The almoner began to smile, then suddenly he looked shrewd.

"Do you suspect him of dealings with——?"

"With Satan! How else would his whole character have changed in a month? Is it natural? And who took him out of the cell to which I alone had the key?"

"Watch him," said Father Laurence eagerly, suppressing the theory that Erik with the sure step of a sleep-walker could easily have got down from the window. "The Bishop will bear no witchcraft, even in his kinsman. And the law will be with him."

"Tomorrow," sighed Father Sebastian, "I will examine and have put to the question this Dame Agnes and her daughter of whom you spoke. Rumor has it that she was at Lynas too, and you say that they are both suspected——?"

"They are!" the other encouraged him. "But remember it is more important to root out the black art in high places!"