“If it be so,” said Gerbert, “let’s be off!”

“What!” exclaimed Lucifer, “you are willing to accompany me to the infernal regions!”

“Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning of Plato and Aristotle, and give place to the darkness against which I have been contending all my life.”

“Gerbert,” replied the demon, “this is arrant trifling.  Know you not that no good man can enter my dominions? that, were such a thing possible, my empire would become intolerable to me, and I should be compelled to abdicate?”

“I do know it,” said Gerbert, “and hence I have been able to receive your visit with composure.”

“Gerbert,” said the devil, with tears in his eyes, “I put it to you—­is this fair, is this honest?  I undertake to promote your interests in the world; I fulfil my promise abundantly.  You obtain through my instrumentality a position to which you could never otherwise have aspired.  Often have I had a hand in the election of a Pope, but never before have I contributed to confer the tiara on one eminent for virtue and learning.  You profit by my assistance to the full, and now take advantage of an adventitious circumstance to deprive me of my reasonable guerdon.  It is my constant experience that the good people are much more slippery than the sinners, and drive much harder bargains.”

“Lucifer,” answered Gerbert, “I have always sought to treat you as a gentleman, hoping that you would approve yourself such in return.  I will not inquire whether it was entirely in harmony with this character to seek to intimidate me into compliance with your demand by threatening me with a penalty which you well knew could not be enforced.  I will overlook this little irregularity, and concede even more than you have requested.  You have asked to be a Cardinal.  I will make you Pope—­”

“Ha!” exclaimed Lucifer, and an internal glow suffused his sooty hide, as the light of a fading ember is revived by breathing upon it.

“For twelve hours,” continued Gerbert.  “At the expiration of that time we will consider the matter further; and if, as I anticipate, you are more anxious to divest yourself of the Papal dignity than you were to assume it, I promise to bestow upon you any boon you may ask within my power to grant, and not plainly inconsistent with religion or morals.”

“Done!” cried the demon.  Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in a moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely indistinguishable save by their attire, and the fact that one limped slightly with the left foot.

“You will find the Pontifical apparel in this cupboard,” said Gerbert, and, taking his book of magic with him, he retreated through a masked door to a secret chamber.  As the door closed behind him he chuckled, and muttered to himself, “Poor old Lucifer!  Sold again!”

If Lucifer was sold he did not seem to know it.  He approached a large slab of silver which did duty as a mirror, and contemplated his personal appearance with some dissatisfaction.