Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/401

 deadly sin!--Had he not had projection, think you? Saw you no ingots in the crucibles?"

"Nay, I looked not but at the dead carrion," answered Varney; "an ugly spectacle--he was swollen like a corpse three days exposed on the wheel. Pah! give me a cup of wine."

"I will go," said Foster, "I will examine myself--" He took the lamp, and hastened to the door, but there hesitated and paused. "Will you not go with me?" said he to Varney.

"To what purpose?" said Varney; "I have seen and smelled enough to spoil my appetite. I broke the window, however, and let in the air; it reeked of sulphur, and such like suffocating steams, as if the very devil had been there."

"And might it not be the act of the demon himself?" said Foster, still hesitating; "I have heard he is powerful at such times, and with such people."

"Still, if it were that Satan of thine," answered Varney, "who thus jades thy imagination, thou art in perfect safety, unless he is a most unconscionable devil indeed. He hath had two good sops of late."

"How TWO sops--what mean you?" said Foster--"what mean you?"

"You will know in time," said Varney;--"and then this other banquet--but thou wilt esteem Her too choice a morsel for the fiend's tooth--she must have her psalms, and harps, and seraphs."

Anthony Foster heard, and came slowly back to the table. "God! Sir Richard, and must that then be done?"

"Ay, in very truth, Anthony, or th