was ashamed of her girlish fancy for a portionless and despised youth?
If so, was it worth while to go upon so strange an enterprise for her
sake? But if so, also, was life worth living, and might he not as well
go and seek destruction?

While this conflict of feeling was proceeding, he chanced to look
towards the table upon which he had carelessly placed his lamp, and
observed, what in his agitated state of mind he had previously
overlooked, a small roll of manuscript tied round with silk. Curious in
books, he undid the fastening, and opened the volume. There was not much
writing, but many singular diagrams, and signs arranged in circles. It
was, in fact, a book of magic, written at the dictation, as the preface
stated, of one who had been for seven years a slave among the Romany.

He had been captured, and forced to work for the tent to which his
owners belonged. He had witnessed their worship and their sorceries; he
had seen the sacrifice to the full moon, their chief goddess, and the
wild extravagances with which it was accompanied. He had learnt some few
of their signs, and, upon escaping, had reproduced them from memory.
Some were engraved on the stones set in their rings; some were carved on
wooden tablets, some drawn with ink on parchment; but, with all, their
procedure seemed to be the repetition of certain verses, and then a
steady gaze upon the picture. Presently they became filled with rapture,
uttered what sounded as the wildest ravings, and (their women
especially) prophesied of the future.

A few of the signs he understood the meaning of, but the others he owned
were unknown to him. At the end of the book were several pages of
commentary, describing the demons believed in and worshipped by the
Romany, demons which haunted the woods and hills, and against which it