"And you are Margaret Brandt."

"Yes.

"All the better. You love him; you are here. Then Giles was right. He
has won free."

Gerard came forward, and put the question at rest. But all further
explanation was cut short by a horrible unearthly noise, like a
sepulchre ventriloquizing:

"PARCHMENT!--PARCHMENT!--PARCHMENT!"

At each repetition, it rose in intensity. They looked up, and there was
the dwarf, with his hands full of parchments, and his face lighted with
fiendish joy and lurid with diabolical fire. The light being at his
neck, a more infernal "transparency" never startled mortal eye. With the
word, the awful imp hurled parchment at the astonished heads below.
Down came records, like wounded wild-ducks; some collapsed, others
fluttering, and others spread out and wheeling slowly down in airy
circles. They had hardly settled, when again the sepulchral roar was
heard--"Parchment--parchment!" and down pattered and sailed another
flock of documents: another followed: they whitened the grass. Finally,
the fire-headed imp, with his light body and horny hands, slid down the
rope like a falling star, and (business before sentiment) proposed to
his rescued brother an immediate settlement for the merchandise he had
just delivered.

"Hush!" said Gerard; "you speak too loud. Gather them up, and follow us
to a safer place than this."