Now, however, Roger seemed able to speak of it calmly, and without the terror and emotion that any recollection of that episode used to cause him in past years.  He could talk now of the strange trances into which he was thrown, and how he was made to see things at a distance and tell all he saw.  Generally it was travellers upon the road he was instructed to watch, and forced to describe the contents of the mails they carried with them.  Some instinct made the boy many times struggle hard against revealing the nature of the valuables he saw that these people had about them, knowing well how they would be plundered by his rapacious masters, after they had tempted them upon the treacherous swamp not far from Basildene, where, if they escaped with their lives, it would be as much as they could hope to do.  But the truth was always wrung from him by suffering at last —­ not that his body was in any way injured by them, save by the prolonged fasts inflicted upon him to intensify his gift of clairvoyance; but whilst in these trances they could make him believe that any sort of pain was being inflicted, and he suffered it exactly as though it had been actually done upon his bodily frame.  Thus they forced from his reluctant lips every item of information they desired; and he knew when plunder was brought into the house, and stored in the deep underground cellars, how and whence it had come —­ knew, too, that many and many a wretched traveller had been overwhelmed in the swamp who might have escaped with life and goods but for him.

It was the horror of this conviction, and the firm belief that he had been bound over body and soul to Satan, that was killing him by inches when the twin brothers effected his rescue.  He did not always remember clearly in his waking moments what had passed in his hours of trance, but the horror of great darkness always remained with him; and at some moments everything would come upon him with a fearful rush, and he would remain stupefied and overwhelmed with anguish.

To all of this Raymond listened with great interest.  He and John had read of some such phenomena in their books relating to the history of magic; and little as the hypnotic state was understood in those days, the young student had gained some slight insight into the matter, and was able to speak of his convictions to Roger with some assurance.  He told him that though he verily believed such power over the wills of others to be in some sort the work of the devil, it might yet be successfully withstood by a resolute will, bound over to the determination to yield nothing to the strong and evil wills of others.  And Roger, who had long since fought his fight and gained strength and confidence, was not afraid of venturing into the stronghold of wickedness —­ less so than ever now that he might go at Raymond’s side.

It was midnight before the lonely house was reached, and Raymond’s heart beat high as he saw the outline of the old walls looming up against the gloomy sky.  Not a light was to be seen burning in any of the windows, save a single gleam from out the turret at the corner away to the left; and though owls hooted round the place, and bats winged their uncertain flight, no other living thing was to be seen, and the silence of death seemed to brood over the house.