thrashing that he goes into delirium and his fever keeps mounting.
Gilles, in despair, stays beside him, cares for him, has him confessed,
and weeps for joy when Prelati is out of danger.

"The fate of the unknown sorcerer and of Prelati, both getting
dangerously wounded in an empty room, under identical circumstances--I
tell you, it's a remarkable coincidence," said Durtal to himself.

"And the documents which relate these facts are authentic. They are,
indeed, excerpts from the procedure in Gilles's trial. The confessions
of the accused and the depositions of the witnesses agree, and it is
impossible to think that Gilles and Prelati lied, for in confessing
these Satanic evocations they condemned themselves, by their own words,
to be burned alive.

"If in addition they had declared that the Evil One had appeared to
them, that they had been visited by succubi; if they had affirmed that
they had heard voices, smelled odours, even touched a body; we might
conclude that they had had hallucinations similar to those of certain
Bicêtre subjects, but as it was there could have been no misfunctioning
of the senses, no morbid visions, because the wounds, the marks of the
blows, the material fact, visible and tangible, are present for
testimony.

"Imagine how thoroughly convinced of the reality of the Devil a mystic
like Gilles de Rais must have been after witnessing such scenes!

"In spite of his discomfitures, he could not doubt--and Prelati,
half-killed, must have doubted even less--that if Satan pleased, they
should finally find this powder which would load them with riches and