interrupted the ecclesiastic. "There are many men, you will admit, who rule their whole lives by the law of Heaven."

"Of all things that, surely, is the most opposed to Nature. Those laws of which you speak have been made merely to torment the human race. The virtues are simply so many revolts against Nature. That alone is good which satisfies the body."

"And the soul, my dear sir! What of the immortal soul!" said the minister solemnly.

"The soul!" echoed the Master contemptuously; "the most execrable imposture with which the world has ever been befooled! For the body's torment a tyrant was invented to chastise it by means of fasting and renunciation, thus to reduce it to desperation. The soul, sir, is simply a tyrant that forces its monstrous feelings on the body. And we are to suffer thus merely because that tyrannous fiction comes from above—from Heaven, and the body from beneath—from Hell! But how if it were to occur to the body that it is really the master and the other the slave, and the soul were to be trodden under foot?"

"Sir, your dogma seems to me perfectly frightful!" said Herr Waimœner aghast.

"I prosper well enough under it, however. My whole confession of faith, indeed, is contained in these words: 'That which is agreeable to me is right; that which is hurtful to another is not wrong.'"

"Sir, do your companions all practise this religion also?"

"I preach them no other, and they appear quite content with it."

"Have you a family also?" asked the clergyman anxiously; "I sincerely trust not."

"Oh yes," answered the Master lightly. "There dwell with me both a female anthropopithecus and an undeveloped specimen of the simia anthropos, masculini generis."

"And what religion, pray, do you teach your son?"

"The same that I have just enunciated."

The reverend gentleman raised his hands in righteous horror. Then, after fervently murmuring the first lines of Luther's hymn, "A safe stronghold our God is still!" he rose to go.

"Farewell, sir," said he. "Never again can I come here. When I reach home I shall at once make a representation to our authorities to compel you to build up your exit on the island side, so that you and yours may never come forth to trouble and contaminate our people."

"Fear not, friend," said the Master, calmly and emphatically. "We never shall go out to trouble you; but it will not be long ere you come here to us. Listen! In this very year a famine will visit your island. I have learnt as much already from those demons of mine. Ay, and your people will come crawling on their knees to me who possess the power to turn the rocks into bread, and they will sing 'Hallelujah Satanas!' in chorus."

The clergyman pulled his gown over his ears in order to shut out such blasphemy, and rushed precipitately down stairs and out at the lower door. Never again had he the least inclination to pay a further pastoral visit to the Satanic Apostle of Dago.

CHAPTER IV
The Sorcerer

The Master of the Tower of Dago spoke the truth. It was really the powers of Darkness that helped him to make the rocks and water into bread and wine. He also stated a simple fact when he declared that the agent in the transformation was the furnace in the observatory at the summit of the tower. It was in the following manner that this work of sorcery was accomplished.

On a day when the position of the barometer and the cries of the sea-gulls announced the approach of a storm, the Apostle of Dago assembled his companions in a subterranean chamber of his tower. This vault was called the "chapel." It contained a pulpit, from which the Master himself was in the habit of exhorting his flock. It was, indeed, a strange chapel!

And what frightful exhortations were these! Exhortations to the perpetration of all manner of misdeeds and cruelty; the ten commandments of God reversed; perpetual enmity towards all mankind, and especially towards their own land, their dearest friends, their fathers and brothers; sin in its deepest depths of depravity raised aloft as a virtue; faithlessness and treachery the highest duty; and the malediction of the world the most perfect bliss! Such was the gospel of Dago.

While the Master uttered these doctrines his little son sat on the pulpit steps at his feet, so that he might early imbibe the frightful precepts in all childish simplicity, and continue their propagation when his father should have gone to his own place. The song of praise was never raised in that chapel; only the sound of scornful, scoffing laughter was ever heard.

"Overthrow the ten commandments! Be false; covet what is thy neighbour's; kill, steal, dishonour thy father, thy father's father, and the greatest father of all—the Tsar! Seek out for thyself a lovely flower whose name is woman; pluck it—then crush it, and cast it away when all its fragrance is fled!"

Doubtless the child understood but little as yet of such doctrines as those to which he was compelled to listen.

"To-night or to-morrow we hold high festival!"

Upon this announcement being made the inmates hastened to bring their small boats out of their concealment in the vault. These vessels were constructed to hold three men each, and were made of light wood covered with stout leather. They were then placed in readiness in a narrow creek leading from the vault out into the open sea.

As the storm at length began to break, the men were certain to be sitting ready in their boats, awaiting the expected "sacrifice."

And as certainly it came.

As night began to fall the Master ascended alone to the observatory. He at once lighted the furnace, and heightened its brilliancy by means of lime and oxygen. He then removed the wainscot from the three walls opposite the large windows facing the sea. Behind the wainscot were immense concave mirrors of burnished steel. These now reflected back the dazzling light from the furnace in three directions away to the distant horizon.

Before the exercises of the night it was customary to ring the "chapel" bell. This was an enormous bell, which had once been taken as booty. It was suspended in a secret chamber beneath the observatory, and on being rung, its rumbling notes sounded through a semicircular window of the tower far out into the night. The tower had no opening on the land side, and the inhabitants of the island could neither see the light of the furnace nor hear the tolling of the bell. Every ship which appeared on the horizon in a stormy night must inevitably fall a prey to this diabolical stratagem.

In the channel connecting the Baltic with the Gulf of Finland there were two lighthouses—one on the Swedish coast at Gustavsvarn, and another on the Finnish coast near Revel. Even on a stormy night seamen might easily have steered their course by these two lights. But the Devil's apostle in the Tower of Dago confused them with his light and the sound of his bell. The mariners imagined that one of the two lighthouses known to them lay before them. They felt sure that the light beckoned them on to safety. So, with heartfelt thanks to God for His mercy, they