called himself Teague smiled twinklingly.
“Yo’re secesh. Ye fight the Yanks. If ye’ll be good, an’ not gimme no argyments, blink yore left eye.”
Power of blinking returned to that lid, and Paradine lowered it submissively.
“Now ye kin move again—I’ll say the words.”
He leafed through the book once more, and read out; “Ye horsemen an’ footmen, conjered here at this time, ye may pass on in the name of . . .” Paradine did not catch the name, but it had a sound that chilled him. Next instant, motion was restored to his arms and legs. The blood tingled sharply in them, as if they had been asleep.
Teague offered him a hand, and Paradine took it. That hand was froggy cold and soft, for all its boniness.
“Arter this,” decreed Teague, “do what I tell ye, or I’ll read ye somethin’ ye’ll like less.” And he held out the open book significantly.
Paradine saw the page—it bore the number 60 in one corner, and at its top was a heading in capitals: TO RELEASE SPELL-BOUND PERSONS. Beneath were the lines with which Teague had set him in motion again, and among them were smudged inky marks.
“You’ve crossed out some words,” Paradine said at once.
“Yep. An’ wrote in others.” Teague held the book closer to him.
Paradine felt yet another chill, and beat down a desire to turn away. He spoke again, because he felt that he should.
“It’s the name of God that you’ve cut out, Teague. Not once, but three times. Isn’t that blasphemy? And you’ve written in—”
“The name of somebody else.” Teague’s beard ruffled into a grin. “Young feller, ye don’t understand. This book was wrote full of the name of God. That name is good—fer some things. But fer curses an’ deaths an’ overthrows, sech as this ’un—well, I changed the names an’ spells by puttin’ in that other name ye saw. An’ it works fine.” He grinned wider as he surveyed the tumbled thousands around them, then shut the book and put it away.
Paradine had been wwell educated. He had read Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, at the University of Virginia, and some accounts of the New England witchcraft cases. He could grasp, though he had never been called upon to consider, the idea of an alliance with evil. All he could reply was:
“I don’t see more than five thousand Yankees in this town. Our boys can whip that many and more, without any spells.”
Teague shook his old head. “Come on, let’s go an’ set on them steps,” he invited, pointing.
The two walked back down the street, entered a yard and dropped down upon a porch. The shady leaves above them hung as silent as chips of stone. Through the fence-pickets showed the blue lumps of quiet that had been a fighting division of Federals. There was no voice, except Teague’s.
“Ye don’t grasp what war means, young feller. Sure, the South is winnin’ now—but to win, men must die. Powder must burn. An’ the South hain’t got men an’ powder enough to keep it up.”
If Paradine had never thought of that before, neither had his superiors, except possibly General Lee. Yet it was plainly true.
Teague extended the argument:
“But if every Yank army was put to sleep, fast’s it got in reach—what then? How’d ye like to lead yore own army into Washington an’ grab ole Abe Lincoln right outen the White House? How’d ye like to be the second greatest man o’ the South?”
“Second greatest man?” echoed Paradine breathlessly, forgetting to fear. He was being tempted as few chivalric ideal-
