Chapter 7

      Spells

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      Theirry found Dirk as he was passing under the arched colonnade.

      “Prudence!” he quoted. “Where is your prudence now?”

      Dirk turned quickly.

      “I had to put on a bold front. Certes, I hate that knave. But let him go now. Come with me.” Theirry followed him through the college, up the dark stairway into his chamber.

      It was a low arched room, looking on to the garden, barely furnished, and containing only the bed, a chair and some books on a shelf.

      Dirk opened the window on the sun-flushed twilight.

      “The students are jealous of me because of my reputation with the doctors,” he said, smiling. “One told me today I was the most learned youth in the college. And how long have we been here? But ten months.”

      Theirry was silent; the triumph in his companion’s voice could find no echo in his heart; neither in his legitimate studies nor in his secret experiments had he been as successful as Dirk, who in ancient and modern lore, in languages, algebra, theology, oratory had far outshone all competitors, and who had progressed dangerously in forbidden things.

      Theirry shook off the feeling of jealousy that possessed him, and spoke on another subject. “Dirk, I saw a lady today — such a lady!”

      In their constant, close and tender companionship neither had ever failed in sympathy, therefore it was with surprise that Theirry saw Dirk perceptibly harden.

      “A lady!” he repeated, and turned from the window so that the shadows of the room were over his face.

      Theirry must have a listener, must loosen his tongue on the subject of his delicate adventure, so he proceeded.

      “Ay —’twas in the valley — a valley, I mean — which I had never seen before. Oh, Dirk!” he was leaning against the end of the bed, gazing across the dusk. “’Twas a lady so sweet — she had —”

      Dirk interrupted him.

      “Certes!” he cried angrily; “she had grey eyes belike, and yellow hair — have they not always yellow hair? — and a mincing mouth and a manner of glancing sideways, and cunning words, I’ll warrant me —”

      “Why, she had all this,” answered Theirry, bewildered. “But she was pleasant, had you but seen her, Dirk.”

      The youth sneered.

      “Who is she — thy lady?”

      “Jacobea of Martzburg.” He took obvious pleasure in saying her name. “She is a great lady and gracious.”

      “Out on ye!” exclaimed Dirk passionately. “What is she to us? Have we not other matters to think of? I did not think ye so weak as to come chanting the praises of the first thing that smiles on ye!”

      Theirry was angered.

      “’Tis not the first time — and what have I said of her?”

      “Oh enough — ye have lost your heart to her, I doubt not — and what use will ye be-a love-sick knave!”

      “Nay,” answered Theirry hotly. “You have no warrant for this speech. How should I love the lady, seeing her once? I did but say she was fair and gentle.”

      “’Tis the first woman you have spoken of to me — in that voice — did ye not say —‘such a lady’?”

      Theirry felt the blood stinging his cheeks.

      “Could you have seen her,” he repeated.

      “Ay, had I seen her I could tell you how much paint she wore, how tight her lace was —” Theirry interrupted.

      “I’ll hear no more — art a peevish youth, knowing nothing of women; she was one of God’s roses, pink and white, and we not fit to kiss her little shoes — ay, that’s pure truth.” Dirk stamped his foot passionately.

      “Little shoes! If you come home to me to rave of her little shoes, and her pink and white, you may bide alone for me. Speak no more of her.”

      Theirry was silent a while; he could not afford to lose Dirk’s companionship or to have him in an ill temper, nor did he in any way wish to jeopardise the good understanding between them, so he quelled the anger that rose in him at the youth’s unreasonabloness, and answered quietly ——“On what matter did you wish to see me?”

      Dirk struggled for a moment with a heaving breast and closed his teeth over a rebellious lip, then he crossed the room and opened the door of an inner chamber.

      He had obtained permission to use this apartment for his studies; the key of it he carried always with him, and only he and Theirry had ever entered it.

      In silence, lighting a lamp, and placing it on the windowsill, he beckoned Theirry to follow him.

      It was a dismal room; piled against the walls were the books Dirk had brought with him, and on the open hearth some dead charred sticks lay scattered.

      “See,” said Dirk; he drew from a dark corner a roughly carved wooden figure some few inches high. “I wrought this today — and if I know the spells aright there is one will pay for his insolence.”

      Theirry took the figure in his hand.

      “’Tis Joris of Thuringia.”

      Dirk nodded sombrely.

      The room was thick with unhealthy odours, and a close stagnant smoke seemed to hang round the roof; the lamp cast a pulsating yellow light over the dreariness and threw strange shaped shadows from the jars and bottles standing about the floor.

      “What is this Joris to you?” asked Theirry curiously.

      Dirk was unrolling a manuscript inscribed in Persian.

      “Nothing. I would see what skill I have.”

      The old evil excitement seized Theirry; they had tried spells before, on cattle and dogs, but without success; his blood tingled at the thought of an enchantment potent to confound enemies. “Light the fire,” commanded Dirk.

      Theirry set the image by the lamp, and poured a thick yellow fluid from one of the bottles over the dead sticks.

      Then he flung on a handful of grey powder.

      A close dun-coloured vapour rose, and a sickly smell filled the room; then the sticks burst suddenly into a tall and beautiful flame that sprang noiselessly up the chimney and cast a clear and unnatural glow round the chamber.

      Theirry