“’The seat is prepared. 
    Justice hath determined. 
    The time is short.’”

“Seest thou no creature?” anxiously inquired the Doctor.

“None.  But the pillar openeth as though it were cleft.  Now a woman cometh forth out of the pedestal, covered with a cloud.  I can see her face dimly at times through this veil, which seemeth to pass over as a thin cloud before the dazzling sun.  She standeth as though in a hollow shell, glistening with such fair colours that no earthly brightness may be comparable to it.  She now seemeth to wrap the air about her as a garment.  She entereth into a thick cloud and disappears.  There now cometh one like unto a little girl, her hair turned up before, and flowing behind in long and bright curls.  Her raiment sparkles like unto changeable silk, green and red.”

“’Tis Madini,” said Dee, with great delight.  “Note well what she sayeth, for she is my good angel.”

“She sitteth down.  Her lips move as though she were speaking, but I hear nothing.”

“I will speak to her,” said Dee; “for she will answer me through thy ministry, if it really be Madini.  Art thou Madini, that has appeared to me beforetime?”

“I think she answereth,’Yes.’  But her voice is very feeble.”

“I would thou shouldest resolve me three things,” said the Doctor, again addressing himself towards the glass.  “To wit—­Whereto shall I direct my journey, and how shall I cause it to prosper?  Secondly, I would speedily be instructed in that great and heavenly mystery, the powder of projection, which I have been oft promised, but never understood aright by reason of my feeble apprehensions, or inability to accomplish the grand and sublime arcanum.  Thirdly, How may I find the treasure which was shown to me in a dream three several times; but where it is hidden is withheld from me?”

“She says she will answer so far as the will of him that sent her will permit; but she hath a short continuance, and her answer must be brief.  With respect to the country, make thine own choice, and thou shalt be directed in it for thy good.  The other questions she says she cannot solve, but will send one of the seven who bear rule over the seals of the metals and their matrix.  She hath departed, yet I saw her not.  She went like a sudden stroke of light; and now there cometh a man clad in sober apparel, with an inkhorn at his girdle.  He holdeth a pen, as though he would write, but his face is veiled.”

“’Tis a motion that I should bring my tablets,” said the Doctor.

“Now he is writing,” continued the seer.  “He showeth me a roll of parchment.  But the glass becometh dim, and I think that evil spirits are troubling us, for the whole seems to waver, like the glowing air over the furnace.”

The Doctor now fell to his prayers, when Bartholomew assured him the glass grew brighter, gradually becoming still, like the subsiding of waves after some accidental disturbance.  He could now see the writing distinctly, and the veil was also removed.