“Not so, my son, upon honour,” returned the mysterious personage.  “I am but a distressed magician, at this present in fearful straits, from which I look to be delivered by thee.”

The youth gazed some moments at his companion’s head, and then still more earnestly at his feet.  He then yielded his own hand to him, and the pair crossed the piazza, almost at a run, the magician ever ejaculating, “Speed! speed!”

They paused at the foot of a lofty tower, doorless and windowless, with no visible access of any kind.  But the magician signed with his hand, pronounced some cabalistical words, and instantly stone and lime fell asunder and revealed an entrance through which they passed, and which immediately closed behind them.  The youth quaked at finding himself alone in utter darkness with he knew not what, but the wizard whistled, and a severed hand appeared in air bearing a lamp which illuminated a long winding staircase.  The old man motioned to the youth to precede him, nor dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would have given the world for the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint.  The distorted shadows of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the wavering lamp-shine, seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and he glanced back ever and anon weening to see himself dogged by some frightful monster, but he saw only the silver hair and sable velvet of the dignified old man.

After the ascent of many steps a door opened before them, and they found themselves in a spacious chamber, brightly, yet from its size imperfectly illumined by a single large lamp.  It was wainscoted with ebony, and the furniture was of the same.  A long table was covered with scrolls, skulls, crucibles, crystals, star-charts, geomantic figures, and other appurtenances of a magician’s calling.  Tomes of necromantic lore lined the walls, which were yet principally occupied with crystal vessels, in which foul beings seemed dimly and confusedly to agitate themselves.

The magician signed to his visitor to be seated, sat down himself and began: 

“Brave youth, ere entering upon the boundless power and riches that await thee, learn who I am and why I have brought thee here.  Behold in me no vulgar wizard, no mere astrologer or alchemist, but a compeer of Merlin and Michael Scott, with whose name it may be the nurse of thy infancy hath oft-times quelled thy froward humours.  I am Peter of Abano, falsely believed to have lain two centuries buried in the semblance of a dog under a heap of stones hurled by the furious populace, but in truth walking earth to this day, in virtue of the compact now to be revealed to thee.  Hearken, my son!  Vain must be the machinations of my enemies, vain the onslaughts of the rabble, so long as I fulfil a certain contract registered in hell’s chancery, as I have now done these three hundred years.  And the condition is this, that every year I present unto the Demon one