She huddled her hands almost into the flame of the candle, but that did no good, for the shudders that come from lost shadows go deeper than skin or bones. They chill not merely the blood but the very spirit.
And the chill and the awe of Space gripped also Ramon Alonzo.
“Why does he send them there?” he whispered to her, for his voice had sunk to this.
“Ah, we don’t know that,” she said. “He’s too deep and sly. But he has friends out there, and he’s likely sending them, poor shadows, to one of them, to bow before one of them and give it a message, and dance to it and then come back to the shadow-box.”
“He’ll bring it back?” asked Ramon Alonzo quickly.
“Oh yes,” she said, “he always brings them back. He won’t part with his shadows.”
“What spirits are they?” he asked.
“Evil spirits,” she answered.
And then they sat silent awhile, trembling and wan, while their nerves were numbed by an unearthly cold. And if the charwoman’s aged frame was more easily shaken by tremblings, yet the young heart of Ramon Alonzo seemed to feel more vividly his shadow’s distress.
“Often the spirits pass close to Earth on a journey, and he sends his shadows a little way out to greet them. But they are right beyond that now, poor shadows,” she said.
“Why does he send them so far?” he asked.
“Lust of power,” she said. “Cruel savagery. I know his piques and his ways. He doesn’t like your finding out the trick that he played you. I’ve known him make the shadows dance for hours because I haven’t worked hard enough for him. And I’ve been all tired after that, worn out and years older.”
Somehow her courage in speaking at all when racked by those terrible tremors, and in speaking against the grim man to whose tyranny they were subject, brought a warmth to Ramon Alonzo.
And soon she said: “They are turning homeward now.”
Then they sat silent both waiting. And now the terror had gone, and gradually some slight thawing, too faint to be called a glow, touched the unearthly cold that had gripped them so sorely. Whether it was some warmth that the shadows got from Jupiter, or from the sun itself, neither Ramon Alonzo nor the wise old charwoman knew; and at last the charwoman leaned back against the wall with a certain content again on her worn old face: “They are back in the box,” she said.
And suddenly he stood up, his left hand dropping upon his sword-hilt, a fine figure there in his cloak, even in that dim light.
“I will take your shadow,” he said, “and he shall torment it no more. My own must stay in the box because of the bargain I made with him and the need that I have for gold, but I will bring back yours to you and he shall torment it no more.”
He had said the same before, and she had smiled it away; but he was so vehement now that, if resolution could have accomplished it, she saw the thing had been done. And yet she shook her head.
“I have my sword,” he said.
But she looked at it pityingly.
“He has more terrible things,” she answered sadly.
And at that he realized that in that dark house more store must be set by immaterial things than by those that men can handle. And he thought of the spell.
“Then I will open the box while he is away,” he said. “And you shall have back your shadow and mine will stay in the box.”
And again she warned him that the shadow-box opened to no key.
“I have seen the spell in his book,” he said, “unto which the padlock opens!”
“Can you utter it?” said she.
“No, it is in Chinese.”
Now there was at that time no Chinaman in all the lands of Spain. And the ships of Spain had no traffic with Chinese lands. Yet Ramon Alonzo pondered this most faint hope, and leaving the pails and brooms went thoughtfully thence.
XII
Mirandola Demands a Love-Potion
When Ramon Alonzo appeared next day in the room that was sacred to magic the magician was there before him.
“You have a fine strong shadow,” said the magician.
Certainly it lay black and bold on the floor; and, since it was then as many hours before noon as the making of the shadow had been after it, it was just as long as the shadows of other men. But not a word did Ramon Alonzo answer. He went instead to his seat, and there sat waiting to receive more of the learning for which he had paid so much. The gold must needs be got for his sister’s dowry, even at the cost of those tremors and terrors, against which fortitude that endured the ills of the body seemed of so little avail; and after that, if other plans failed, he might become so wealthy with the gold he should make that he would buy back his shadow, or if the magician paid no heed to gold he might find those who did, and arm them and go against the house in the wood and capture the spells and the shadow-box. But his head was too full of plans for any one to ripen; and then the voice of the magician came breaking across them suddenly. “When by blending the metals,” he said, “till their texture is nearest to the texture of gold, we have made the preparation that is meet, the philosophers choose from amongst such scrolls as these a spell that is best suited to the material to be dealt with. And having read it aloud in its own language, whatever language it be;
