The
mortal does not breathe, nor ever will, who can penetrate the secret
of that spell, and without that secret none can break it. The
water will flow no more forever, good Father. I have done what
man could. Suffer me to go."
Of course this threw the abbot into a good deal of a consternation.
He turned to me with the signs of it in his face, and said:
"Ye have heard him. Is it true?"
"Part of it is."
"Not all, then, not all! What part is true?"
"That that spirit with the Russian name has put his spell
upon the well."
"God's wounds, then are we ruined!"
"Possibly."
"But not certainly? Ye mean, not certainly?"
"That is it."
"Wherefore, ye also mean that when he saith none can break the spell--"
"Yes, when he says that, he says what isn't necessarily true.
There are conditions under which an effort to break it may have
some chance--that is, some small, some trifling chance--of success."
"The conditions--"
"Oh, they are nothing difficult. Only these: I want the well
and the surroundings for the space of half a mile, entirely to
myself from sunset to-day until I remove the ban--and nobody
allowed to cross the ground but by my authority."
"Are these all?"
"Yes."
"And you have no fear to try?"
"Oh, none. One may fail, of course; and one may also succeed.
One can try, and I am ready to chance it.
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