Scarce had he pronounced the last word when the effects of the charm were evident. A loud burst of thunder was heard; the prison shook to its very foundations; a blaze of lightning flashed through the cell; and in the next moment, borne upon sulphurous whirlwinds, Lucifer stood before him a second time. But he came not as when at Matilda’s summons he borrowed the seraph’s form to deceive Ambrosio. He appeared in all that ugliness which since his fall from heaven had been his portion: his blasted limbs still bore marks of the almighty’s thunder: a swarthy darkness spread itself over his gigantic form: his hands and feet were armed with long talons: fury glared in his eyes, which might have struck the bravest heart with terror: over his huge shoulders waved two enormous sable wings; and his hair was supplied by living snakes, which twined themselves round his brows with frightful hissings. In one hand he held a roll of parchment, and in the other an iron pen. Still the lightning flashed around him, and the thunder with repeated bursts, seemed to announce the dissolution of nature.

Terrified at an apparition so different from what he had expected, Ambrosio remained gazing upon the fiend, deprived of the power of utterance. The thunder had ceased to roll: universal silence reigned through the dungeon.

“For what am I summoned hither?” said the daemon, in a voice which sulphurous fogs had damped to hoarseness.

At the sound nature seemed to tremble: a violent earthquake rocked the ground, accompanied by a fresh burst of thunder, louder and more appalling than the first.

Ambrosio was long unable to answer the daemon’s demand.

“I am condemned to die,” he said with a faint voice, his blood running cold, while he gazed upon his dreadful visitor. “Save me! Bear me from hence!”

“Shall the reward of my services be paid me? Dare you embrace my cause? Will you be mine, body and soul? Are you prepared to renounce him who made you, and him who died for you? Answer but ‘Yes’ and Lucifer is your slave.”