“It makes your soul over to me forever, and without reserve.”

“What am I to receive in exchange?”

“My protection, and release from this dungeon. Sign it, and this instant I bear you away.”

Ambrosio took up the pen; he set it to the parchment. Again his courage failed him: he felt a pang of terror at his heart, and once more threw the pen upon the table.

“Weak and puerile!” cried the exasperated fiend: “Away with this folly! Sign the writing this instant, or I sacrifice you to my rage!”

At this moment the bolt of the outward door was drawn back. The prisoner heard the rattling of chains; the heavy bar fell; the archers were on the point of entering. Worked up to frenzy by the urgent danger, shrinking from the approach of death, terrified by the daemon’s threats, and seeing no other means to escape destruction, the wretched monk complied. He signed the fatal contract, and gave it hastily into the evil spirit’s hands, whose eyes, as he received the gift, glared with malicious rapture.

“Take it!” said the God-abandoned; “Now then save me! Snatch me from hence!”

“Hold! Do you freely and absolutely renounce your creator and his son?”

“I do! I do!”

“Do you make over your soul to me forever?”

“Forever!”