“Twenty-three and pair,” cried Euschemon, marking in his turn.

“And seven is thirty.”

“Ace, thirty-one, and I’m up.”

“It is up with you, my friend,” shouted the bishop, bringing his crook down smartly on Euschemon’s shoulders.

“Deuce!” said the devil, and vanished into his bell.

When poor Euschemon had been bound and gagged, which did not take very long, the bishop briefly addressed the assembly.  He said that the accounts of the bell which had reached his ears had already excited his apprehensions.  He had greatly feared that all could not be right, and now his anxieties were but too well justified.  He trusted there was not a man before him who would not suffer his flocks and his crops to be destroyed by tempest fifty times over rather than purchase their safety by unhallowed means.  What had been done had doubtless been done in ignorance, and could be made good by a mulct to the episcopal treasury.  The amount of this he would carefully consider, and the people of Epinal might rest assured that it should not be too light to entitle them to the benefit of a full absolution.  The bell must go to his cathedral city, there to be examined and reported on by the exorcists and inquisitors.  Meanwhile he would himself institute a slight preliminary scrutiny.

The bell was accordingly unhung, tilted up, and inspected by the combined beams of the moonlight and torchlight.  Very slight examination served to place the soundness of the bishop’s opinion beyond dispute.  On the lip of the bell were engraven characters unknown to every one else, but which seemed to affect the prelate with singular consternation.

“I hope,” he exclaimed, “that none of you know anything about these characters!  I earnestly trust that none can read a single one of them.  If I thought anybody could I would burn him as soon as look at him!”

The bystanders hastened to assure him that not one of them had the slightest conception of the meaning of the letters, which had never been observed before.

“I rejoice to hear it,” said the bishop.  “It will be an evil day for the church when these letters are understood.”

And next morning he departed, carrying off the bell, with the invisible fiend inside it; the cards, which were regarded as a book of magic; and the luckless Euschemon, who shortly found himself in total darkness, the inmate of a dismal dungeon.

It was some time before Euschemon became sensible of the presence of any partner in his captivity, by reason of the trotting of the rats.  At length, however, a deep sigh struck upon his ear.

“Who art thou?” he exclaimed.

“An unfortunate prisoner,” was the answer.

“What is the occasion of thy imprisonment?”

“Oh, a mere trifle.  A ridiculous suspicion of sacrificing a child to Beelzebub.  One of the little disagreeables that must occasionally occur in our profession.”