The young man shuddered on receiving the momentous offer, but continued to gaze fixedly at the cunning workmanship, and again the Evil One addressed him, bidding him repair that very night to a certain place on a blasted heath, where, if he would sign a document consigning his soul to everlasting damnation, he would be presented with the plan duly drawn on parchment.  The architect still wavered, now eager to accept the offer, and now vowing that the stipulated price was too frightful.  In the end he was given time wherein to come to a decision, and he hurried from the place at hot speed as the tempter vanished from his sight.

On reaching his dwelling the architect flung himself upon his bed and burst into a paroxysm of weeping.  The good woman who tended him observed this with great surprise, for he was not given to showing his emotions thus; and wondering what terrible sorrow had come to him, she proceeded to make kindly inquiries.  At first these were met with silence, but, feeling a need for sympathy, the architect eventually confessed the truth; and the good dame, horrified at what she heard, hurried off to impart the story to her father-confessor.  He, too, was shocked, but he was as anxious as Bishop Conrad that the proposed cathedral should be duly built, and he came quickly to the architect’s presence.  “Here,” he told him, “is a piece of our Lord’s cross.  This will preserve you.  Go, therefore, as the fiend directed you, take the drawing from him, and brandish the sacred relic in his accursed face the moment you have received it.”

When evening drew near the architect hurried to the rendezvous, where he found the Devil waiting impatiently.  But a leer soon spread over his visage, and he was evidently overjoyed at the prospect of wrecking a soul.  He quickly produced a weird document, commanding his victim to affix his signature at a certain place.  “But the beautiful plan,” whispered the young man; “I must see it first; I must be assured that the drawing on the sand has been faithfully copied.”  “Fear nothing.”  The Devil handed over the precious piece of vellum; and glancing at it swiftly, and finding it in order, the architect whipped it under his doublet.  “Aha! you cannot outwit me,” shrieked the fiend; but as he was laying hands upon the architect the young man brought forth the talisman he carried.  “A priest has told you of this, for no one else would have thought of it,” cried the Devil, breathing flame from his nostrils.  But his wrath availed him naught; he was forced to retreat before the sacred relic, yet as he stepped backward he uttered a deadly curse.  “You have deceived me,” he hissed; “but know that fame will never come to you; your name will be forgotten for evermore.”

And behold, the fiend’s prophecy was fulfilled.  The cathedral was scarcely completed ere the young architect’s name became irrevocably forgotten, and now this grisly tale is all that is known concerning his identity.