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Chapter 1--Introduction to Managerial Accounting

Student: ___________________________________________________________________________

1. Management accounting information is only used by manufacturing organizations.

True False

2. The managerial activity of monitoring a plan's implementation and taking corrective action as needed is
referred to as decision making.
True False

3. The process of choosing among competing alternatives is decision making.

True False

4. Managerial accounting information isnot important for not-for-profit organizations.

True False

5. Managerial Accounting is designed primarily for internal users.

True False

6. Managerial accounting has its emphasis on the future.

True False
7. Financial accounting is governed by GAAP.
True False

8. The value chain is the set of activities required to design, develop, produce, market, and deliver products and
service to customers.
True False

9. Time is not a crucial element in all phases of the value chain.

True False

10. Activity-based costing is a less detailed approach to determining the cost of goods and services than
traditional cost accounting.
True False

11. Excellent customer service is an example of a value-added activity.

True False

12. A cost accountant would normally occupy a staff position within an organization.
True False

13. Positions that have direct responsibility for the basic objectives of an organization are referred to as line
positions.
True False

14. Virtually all managerial accounting practices were developed to assist managers in maximizing profits.
True False

15. The belief that each member of a group bears no responsibility for the well-being of other members is a
common principle underlying all ethical systems.
True False
16. The four emphasized areas of the CMA examination reflect the needs of managerial accounting and
highlights that managerial accounting has more of an interdisciplinary flavor than other areas of accounting.
True False

17. The purpose of the Certificate in Public Accounting is to provide minimal professional qualification for
external auditors.
True False

18. The detailed formulation of action to achieve a particular end is the management activity
called_____________.
________________________________________

19. ______________________________ is the provision of accounting information for a company’s internal

users.
________________________________________

20. The process of choosing among competing alternatives is called ________________________.

________________________________________

21. The managerial activity of monitoring a plan’s implementation and taking corrective action as needed is
referred to as ______________.
________________________________________

22. The managerial accounting system produces information for __________ users.
________________________________________

23. ____________________ is primarily concerned with producing information for external users.
________________________________________

24. Managerial accounting strongly emphasizes providing information about _________________.

________________________________________
25. The _____________________ is the set of activities required to design, develop, produce, market and
deliver products and services as well as provide support services to customers.
________________________________________

26. __________________________ organizes costs according to the value chain and collects both financial and
nonfinancial information.
________________________________________

27. __________________________________________ is a management philosophy in which manufacturers

strive to create an environment that will enable workers to manufacture perfect (zero-defect) products.
________________________________________

28. _____________________________ is the continual search for ways to increase the overall efficiency and
productivity of activities by reducing waste, increasing quality and managing costs.
________________________________________

29. _________ is a crucial element in all phases of the value chain.

________________________________________

30. The________________supervises all accounting functions and reports directly to the general manager and
chief operating officer (COO).
________________________________________

31. Positions that are supportive in nature and have only indirect responsibility for an organization’s basic
objectives are called ________________________.
________________________________________

32. The ____________________ is responsible for the finance function.

________________________________________

33. In June 2002, Congress passed the____________________________________ in response to financial

scandals such as Enron.
________________________________________
34. ________________________ involves choosing actions that are right, proper, and just.
________________________________________

35. To promote ethical behavior by managers and employees, organizations commonly establish
a__________________________.
________________________________________

36. Only a _________________________ is permitted to serve as an external auditor.

________________________________________

37. A __________________________ has passed a comprehensive examination designed to ensure technical

competence and has two years of experience.
________________________________________

38. Which of the following is not an objective of managerial accounting?

A. To prepare external reports for investors, creditors, government agencies, and other outside users.
B. To provide information for costing of services, products, and other objects of interest to management.
C. To provide information for planning, controlling, evaluating and continuous improvement.
D. To provide information for decision making.

39. Which of the following is an example of the management activity referred to as planning?
A. Developing a strategy for disposing of hazardous waste.
B. The decision to eliminate an unprofitable segment of an organization.
C. The decision to outsource an organization's payroll processing.
D. All of these are correct

40. Developing a company strategy for responding to anticipated new markets is an example of
A. planning.
B. controlling.
C. decision making.
D. all of these are correct.
41. Investigating production variances and adjusting the production process is an example of
A. planning.
B. controlling.
C. decision making.
D. all of these.

42. The primary objective of managerial accounting is

A. to provide stockholders and potential investors with useful information for decision making.
B. to provide banks and other creditors with information useful in making credit decisions.
C. to provide management with information useful for planning and control of operations.
D. to provide the Internal Revenue Service with information about taxable income.

43. Managerial accounting

A. is primarily for external users.
B. has no mandatory rules.
C. provides information based on historical information.
D. must adhere to GAAP.

44. Managerial accounting reports are prepared

A. according to GAAP guidelines.
B. to meet the needs of decision makers within the firm.
C. for external users.
D. all of these are correct

45. Financial accounting

A. is concerned with the information about the firm as a whole.
B. has to adhere to GAAP policies.
C. focuses on external users.
D. all of these are correct

46. Which of the following would not be an example of a value-added activity?

A. timely delivery of products
B. offering the customer a variety of products
C. storage of finished products
D. excellent customer service
47. Total quality management emphasizes
A. zero defects.
B. continuous improvement.
C. elimination of waste.
D. all of these are correct.

48. Activity-based costing

A. strives to create an environment that will enable works to manufacture zero-defect products.
B. is the process of choosing among competing alternatives.
C. was established in response to financial scandals.
D. encourages process-value analysis.

49. Which of the following would normally occupy a line position?

A. staff accountant
B. accounting manager
C. vice-president of marketing
D. treasurer

50. Which of the following would normally occupy a staff position?

A. assembly worker
B. cost accounting manager
C. factory manager
D. all of these

51. Which of the following would occupy a line position in a hospital?

A. manager of the cafeteria
B. hospital administrator
C. chief of surgery
D. none of these

52. The controller of an organization participates in

A. planning.
B. controlling.
C. decision making.
D. all of these are correct
53. The objective of profit maximization
A. should be the only goal of an organization.
B. is an objective of financial accounting but not managerial accounting.
C. should be achieved through legal and ethical means.
D. should outweigh the goal of product quality.

54. The standards of ethical conduct for managerial accountants include

A. competence and performance.
B. integrity and respect for others.
C. confidentiality, confidence, integrity, and observance.
D. competence, confidentiality, integrity, and credibility.

55. Which of the following areas is not emphasized on the CMA examination?
A. external auditing and business law
B. economics, finance, and management
C. decision analysis and information systems
D. financial accounting and reporting

56. Accountants that have a Certificate in Public Accounting (CPA):

A. are the only accountants permitted to serve as external auditors.
B. must pass a national examination and be licensed by the state in which they practice.
C. may be held responsible to provide assurance concerning the reliability of a firm's financial statements.
D. all of these statements are true.

57. Persons in the United States who provide assurance service are designated as
A. Certified Public Accountants.
B. Certified Financial Accountants.
C. Chartered Accountants.
D. Certified Management Accountants.

58. Describe the major differences between managerial accounting and financial accounting.
59. Discuss in detail the three uses of managerial accounting information.

60. The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) established ethical standards for accountants known as the
Statement of Ethical Professional Practice. Briefly describe the four standards.

61. Briefly describe activity-based costing (ABC), value chain, lean accounting and enterprise risk management
(ERM).

62. List the different types of certifications that can be obtained by an accountant.
63. Describe the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

64. You have been working as a staff accountant at Sanborn Industries for three months. Mr. Jones, the
accounting manager as well as your boss, has informed you that he has decided to change vendors for the
company’s office supplies. He notifies you that your company will now be utilizing the store owned by his best
friend. Mr. Jones is hopeful that this will bring in a significant profit for his friend’s business possibly
preventing the closing of his store. You receive the first invoice from that store and realize that the prices are
nearly double the amount that the company was paying when using a large retail chain.

What should you do about the situation?

Chapter 1--Introduction to Managerial Accounting Key

1. Management accounting information is only used by manufacturing organizations.

FALSE

2. The managerial activity of monitoring a plan's implementation and taking corrective action as needed is
referred to as decision making.
FALSE

3. The process of choosing among competing alternatives is decision making.

TRUE

4. Managerial accounting information isnot important for not-for-profit organizations.

FALSE

5. Managerial Accounting is designed primarily for internal users.

TRUE

6. Managerial accounting has its emphasis on the future.

TRUE

7. Financial accounting is governed by GAAP.

TRUE

8. The value chain is the set of activities required to design, develop, produce, market, and deliver products and
service to customers.
TRUE
9. Time is not a crucial element in all phases of the value chain.
FALSE

10. Activity-based costing is a less detailed approach to determining the cost of goods and services than
traditional cost accounting.
FALSE

11. Excellent customer service is an example of a value-added activity.

TRUE

12. A cost accountant would normally occupy a staff position within an organization.
TRUE

13. Positions that have direct responsibility for the basic objectives of an organization are referred to as line
positions.
TRUE

14. Virtually all managerial accounting practices were developed to assist managers in maximizing profits.
TRUE

15. The belief that each member of a group bears no responsibility for the well-being of other members is a
common principle underlying all ethical systems.
FALSE

16. The four emphasized areas of the CMA examination reflect the needs of managerial accounting and
highlights that managerial accounting has more of an interdisciplinary flavor than other areas of accounting.
TRUE

17. The purpose of the Certificate in Public Accounting is to provide minimal professional qualification for
external auditors.
TRUE
18. The detailed formulation of action to achieve a particular end is the management activity
called_____________.
planning.

19. ______________________________ is the provision of accounting information for a company’s internal

users.
Managerial accounting

20. The process of choosing among competing alternatives is called ________________________.

decision making

21. The managerial activity of monitoring a plan’s implementation and taking corrective action as needed is
referred to as ______________.
controlling

22. The managerial accounting system produces information for __________ users.
internal

23. ____________________ is primarily concerned with producing information for external users.
Financial accounting

24. Managerial accounting strongly emphasizes providing information about _________________.

future events

25. The _____________________ is the set of activities required to design, develop, produce, market and
deliver products and services as well as provide support services to customers.
value chain

26. __________________________ organizes costs according to the value chain and collects both financial and
nonfinancial information.
Lean accounting
27. __________________________________________ is a management philosophy in which manufacturers
strive to create an environment that will enable workers to manufacture perfect (zero-defect) products.
Total quality management

28. _____________________________ is the continual search for ways to increase the overall efficiency and
productivity of activities by reducing waste, increasing quality and managing costs.
Continuous improvement

29. _________ is a crucial element in all phases of the value chain.

Time

30. The________________supervises all accounting functions and reports directly to the general manager and
chief operating officer (COO).
controller

31. Positions that are supportive in nature and have only indirect responsibility for an organization’s basic
objectives are called ________________________.
staff positions

32. The ____________________ is responsible for the finance function.

treasurer

33. In June 2002, Congress passed the____________________________________ in response to financial

scandals such as Enron.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act or
(SOX) or
SOX

34. ________________________ involves choosing actions that are right, proper, and just.
Ethical behavior
35. To promote ethical behavior by managers and employees, organizations commonly establish
a__________________________.
code of conduct

36. Only a _________________________ is permitted to serve as an external auditor.

Certified Public Accountant or
(CPA) or
CPA

37. A __________________________ has passed a comprehensive examination designed to ensure technical

competence and has two years of experience.
Certified Internal Auditor or
(CIA) or
CIA

38. Which of the following is not an objective of managerial accounting?

A. To prepare external reports for investors, creditors, government agencies, and other outside users.
B. To provide information for costing of services, products, and other objects of interest to management.
C. To provide information for planning, controlling, evaluating and continuous improvement.
D. To provide information for decision making.

39. Which of the following is an example of the management activity referred to as planning?
A. Developing a strategy for disposing of hazardous waste.
B. The decision to eliminate an unprofitable segment of an organization.
C. The decision to outsource an organization's payroll processing.
D. All of these are correct

40. Developing a company strategy for responding to anticipated new markets is an example of
A. planning.
B. controlling.
C. decision making.
D. all of these are correct.
Another random document with
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 Pan Kreutz, although somewhat unnerved by his share in the
encounter, met Pan Andrew in his lodging the next morning and
described as fully as he could the man who had been leader in the
events of the preceding night. He had scarcely finished when Pan
Andrew sprang to his feet and struck the back of his chair with his
fist.
“It is as I thought,” he exclaimed fiercely, “the man who has
assailed me twice before. And now I know for a certainty that it is
that half Mongol, half Cossack that calls himself Bogdan and is
known as the Terrible throughout the Cossack lands. I have heard of
his evil deeds many times, as has every dweller in the Ukraine. And
it would be like him indeed to lead this villainy against me. He is a
very devil, a man without pity, though I will say a man of the boldest
breed that God ever benefited with the gift of breath. We, the Poles
of the Ukraine, knew him as Peter of the Button Face, because of
the scar which you have seen upon his right cheek, and by that scar
I would doubtless have recognized him on the morning when he
attacked me outside the Krakow Gate, had I not believed that he
carried on his lawless deeds always nearer the border.”
Thus saying he went sorrowfully to his work of repairing the
damage done by the Cossack band.
 CHAPTER XI
THE ATTACK ON THE CHURCH

D own in the Ukraine that winter when men went about from
habitation to habitation on the little horses that had noses so
pointed that they could poke them through the snow and eat
the dry grass of the steppe beneath, it was known that a great
change had come over a certain Bogdan, called the Terrible along
the Dnieper and Volga, and Peter of the Button Face among the
Polish colonists. It was not that he had lost so much hair that certain
ones called him behind his back Bogdan of the Singed Locks, that
made him sad and contemplative instead of boisterous and ready as
he had once been—it was the effect of some failure that brought on
despondency and kept him a recluse for several months. When he
did return at length to men’s sight and began to appear in the
taverns, his hair had grown to its accustomed length and a huge
scar that fire had made was nearly healed over. It was hinted, too,
that he had made a journey clear up to the land of the Muscovites
and had had conference with Ivan, called the Great, but this he did
not speak about, and men dared not question him.
Spring came with the month of March in the year 1462, with
peace over all the Dnieper lands, save where here and there tribes
were on the march, or the Tartars were threatening raids. With
spring set out Bogdan the Terrible, and with him traveled as fine a
crowd of cutthroats and cattle stealers as ever the Ukraine knew.
They rode to Rovno, the town of the Level Plain, and then struck out
for Chelm on the border just beyond the River Bug. They established
headquarters in the Lublin Woods for a time, for the purpose of
pillaging, and then hearing that soldiers had been sent after them,
they vanished into the swamp lands to the north and were not heard
of again in those parts.
It seems that Peter had opposed this pillaging from the first,
because he had other work in hand, but they were tribesmen and
wild, fond of robbery and theft and eager for gain.
At Tarnov, having them well in hand again, he organized them
into a caravan of Armenian rug merchants and marched them—
carts, horses and merchants—to Krakow, the great market of the
eastern part of Europe. In Krakow they camped with their wares in
the square on the east side of the Cloth Hall.
Now the saddest man in Krakow at this time was Pan Andrew
Charnetski—sad because he had lost, through no fault of his own, a
treasure which he had intended to present to the King of Poland,
and evidently a treasure of great worth since certain men seemed to
envy him its possession. Jan Kanty sought to comfort him, and his
wife and son and Elzbietka did much to divert his thoughts from the
seriousness of the loss, but on the long nights when he was alone in
the tower, moods of depression would often engulf him.
Joseph, knowing this, took to visiting him in the night vigils when
it was possible, before holy days and vacations when there was no
collegium on the following morning; often he would come with his
father at the tenth hour of the night and remain until morning.
Sometimes he would take the duties of the watchman while his
father slept and sound the Heynals at each hour and inspect the city
regularly from each of the tower windows in order to sound the
alarm whenever a red tongue of flame leaped into the sky. Joseph
had progressed each day in playing the trumpet and could now
sound the Heynal as well as his father.
 He was in the tower with Pan Andrew on this same night that
Peter and his caravan of merchants were encamped in their carts in
the market place below the church. The moon was at its full and the
shadows of the church towers fell far across the street and market.
Down in front of the church doors a watchman with lantern and
halberd paced to and fro calling out, as was his custom, the hours as
they were sounded from the tower.
He had already called out the first hour when Peter of the Button
Face, watching from a cart across the square, decided to make his
first move.
“Michael,” he called in a loud whisper, “Michael.” And at that a
man in a suit of leather with hat to match and thick sandals slid out
of the next cart. He had already divested himself of the round turban
and blankets that he wore as an Armenian merchant, and his body
seemed to move in a constant succession of quiverings and glidings
—in fact he had always been known in the Ukraine as the Snake—
and he stood for a moment by his chief’s wagon to receive a
whispered command in one ear.
 Then, true to his name, he wriggled beneath a dozen carts and
past the flank of an outhouse near the church to take refuge behind
a tree that grew at this corner of the Rynek. Doubled up here he
waited until the watchman should pass in front of the church. He
had not long to wait.
Out from the shadows at the base of the church emerged
suddenly a man carrying a lantern that threw a star-shaped light
about it. This man tested the door to the stairs leading to the
trumpeter’s tower, found it securely locked, yawned, and struck the
paving stones several times in front of the door with his long halberd
as if he were weary of doing nothing. The Snake’s eyes sized up this
man as his opponent. He was a man perhaps past middle age, clad
in a garment of leather over which was a very light chain armor,
poorly woven; this fell like a skirt with pointed edges just below the
knees. Above the waist the links of armor were a bit heavier
extending over the shoulders and back into long sleeves clear to the
wrist, and up past the neck to a kind of head covering like a cowl,
over which he wore a pointed helmet of rough metal. Outside the
armor he wore a very short leather vest caught with a belt from
which hung a short sword, and across the shoulders just below the
neck another belt with a buckle at the left where the halberd could
be secured and balanced.
He passed from the front of the church to the south side, looked
about carefully to see if there were any signs of life in the street or
square, and, finding none, turned away from the church and entered
the churchyard at the south where the moonlight fell brightly upon
the old gravestones. Squatting down behind one of these, and
crossing himself as if in excuse to the people buried there for
disturbing their slumbers, he laid his halberd on the ground at his
right side and the lantern at the left. Then reaching into a wallet
which he wore at his girdle, he took out a crust of bread and a huge
portion of meat. These he began to eat with no suspicion of any
interruption.
 In this conduct he was justified, for he had been doing this same
thing over and over again for many years; there had been no serious
duties about the church save perhaps on a holy day when youth on
mischief bound would play some trick upon the watchman, and them
he could easily dispatch about their business. Thieves seldom
troubled churches in this period and the cemetery itself was guard
enough against marauders in a period full of superstition. Up above
him the trumpeter kept a much stricter vigil, and all about the town,
the watch tried house doors and questioned late passers-by.
“Oh-ho-hum!” he yawned. Such a quiet thing was life!
But—flattened against the church wall behind him was one
whose intention might have disturbed those weary thoughts had the
watchman been able to discern it. The Snake had sized up this
situation with rapidity and had taken advantage of the moment that
the watchman turned his back upon the square to dart into the
projecting shadow of a buttress. Edging along the wall, he moved
cautiously until he was but a few yards from the tombstone by which
the watchman sat.
Plof! The Snake had pounced like a hawk on a mouse.
There was not even a scuffle, so prepared was the intruder and
so taken by surprise was the victim. Down went the watchman on
his back by the side of the grave and in a second the deft Michael
had bound his scarf tightly about the man’s mouth, so that he could
not utter a sound. It was the work of a moment as well, to secure
the hands and feet with short bits of rope that he carried in his
jacket—he was at first minded to cut the man’s throat with his own
sword, but he feared lest he might make one last dying cry and
upset all their plans.
Inside the victim’s leather vest he found a huge brass key. This
he cut loose from the short chain which held it and thrust it into his
own belt.
Then making sure that the bonds were secure, he leaped back
into the shadow of the church and stole back to the wagon of his
chief as deftly as he had come.
“I have bound and gagged the watchman behind yon
gravestone,” he reported, “and here is the key to the tower door.”
A whispered command traveled along the line of carts. Then
there was a general doffing of blankets and turbans and the band of
Peter, in leather jackets and hats, high hose and tall soft boots,
stood ready behind their carts to follow the leader into his
excellently planned enterprise.
It was but a short distance from the carts to the tower, and Peter
led the way, keeping close to the ground in the shadow cast by the
tower. They stood at length, about twenty of them, within the
shelter of the angle which the tower made with the church.
“Keep close behind me,” said the leader, “when we mount the
steps, and watch lest there be loose boards in the stairs beneath
your feet. The boy is here this night in the tower with his father.
Mount carefully, but rush and secure both father and son when I
give you word.”
Here he fitted the key which Michael had stolen from the
watchman, to the lock, and swung the small iron door on its hinges.
He had to stoop as he went in.
“Quiet,” he whispered, “follow closely.”
In a very few minutes they were all inside. The last man
following directions closed the iron door so that if a curious passer-
by should inspect it, he would find it shut as it was usually.
“The task is easy,” whispered Peter when they had climbed the
narrow steps that led to the stairs built in the tower scaffolding, “we
have now but to bag our rabbit. But you must see to it that he is not
a noisy rabbit. If he once gets his hand on a bell rope he will awaken
the whole town with his ringing. He must be secured quickly.”
They went up and up, mounting quietly the stairs that wound
about the heavy scaffolding, and treading ever carefully so that not
a single board should squeak. At last the leader stopped.
 “The light is just ahead,” he whispered.
Through the opened door of the tower room came suddenly the
voice of Joseph, “You can sleep for the rest of the night, father,” he
said. “I will sound the Heynal at every hour; the hourglass is plain to
read and I shall make no error.”
“It was lucky to hit upon a night when they were together,”
thought Peter. “We can bind the old one and make the young one
show us the way to the prize.”
Joseph had just spread a manuscript before him on the table in
the tower room and had moved a taper close to it to begin reading,
when he heard a sudden noise just outside the door. Turning about
sharply, he was just in time to see the door thrown violently open,
and then three men rushed toward him before he could even
assume a defensive attitude; he was absolutely powerless. One man
held his arms as closely gripped as in a vise, while the two others
leaped upon Pan Andrew as he rose, dazed with astonishment, from
the little bed.
A fourth man stood in the doorway. His hands were at his hips
and he laughed merrily. “Ho—ho—my merry singing birds,” he said.
“We meet again high up above the noisy world where none can
come to disturb us.” Then his brows darkened and he asked, “Do
you know why I am here?”
Joseph shuddered. This man was the same that had met his
father on the first day that he had seen Krakow—this was the man
that had incited the crowd in the Rynek to stone his people—this
was the voice that he had heard while he lay bound hand and foot in
the small room of his lodgings. But at the same time he wondered
what had brought the man back to the city. He had already obtained
the prize, Joseph thought, after the risk and danger of the first trial.
Was it, perhaps, that he wished to avenge himself upon his father
for the incident of the cart?
Joseph made a motion as if to cross himself at thought of this,
for here they were high up in the air above the city, and nothing
would be easier than to hurl a man from the summit into the
graveyard below and none would know of it until morning came and
they found the lifeless victim.
Pan Andrew, however, looked at the intruder steadily. “No,” he
said, very deliberately, “I do not know why you are here. But I do
know you now, Peter of the Button Face, sometimes called Bogdan—
it is strange that I did not recognize you that morning when you
threatened me.”
Peter took notice in no way of Pan Andrew’s latter statement. He
heard only the negative answer. Apparently he had not expected it.
“You do not? You lie! . . . Do you think that I do not know
everything?” He pushed his way in and held the candle close to the
prisoner’s face. “I say to you that I have come all this way to get
what I want; I have the means for doing it, too, and I have men in
this company that would rather see a dog like you dead than alive.
Now come—if you value your skin. Where have you hidden the Great
Tarnov Crystal?”
Joseph leaped with a thrill. This, then, was the prize that they
had brought from the Ukraine—a crystal, the “Great Tarnov Crystal,”
whose loss the father had not ceased to mourn. But, after all, was a
crystal something that men valued so highly? If it were a diamond or
a precious stone there might be some reason for so much
covetousness, but a mere crystal—why, he himself knew caves in the
Ukraine where one might knock rock crystals from the walls. But
perhaps this had a certain significance.
“You know as well as I,” returned Pan Andrew, “that it
disappeared on that same night that you attacked my lodgings. If
you have it not, I know not where it is to be found.”
“It disappeared!” Peter was at first shocked, then incredulous.
“You lie!” he shrieked, “you lie! You have it still. I will find a way. . . .
Come here!” he called to Michael the Snake, “take this boy to the
house where he lives and keep always your knife at his throat. I will
stay with the old one here and if you do not return in a quarter of an
hour we will put this Pole out of all trouble in this world. . . . No,” he
continued, as if changing his mind, “I will go with the brat myself.
While we look the house over you keep your sword close to the old
fox’s throat. If the boy leads me the wrong way I’ll slit his throat,
likewise if he tries to betray me. But if we do not return with the
crystal in a reasonable time do as I have told you.”
That Pan Andrew would gladly give up the crystal to save not
only his own life but that of the boy, the Cossack had believed firmly.
Therefore his denial of the possession of the crystal was unlooked
for and baffling. However, he dismissed the matter from his mind
promptly. Undoubtedly Pan Andrew had lied to him, and unless
something unforeseen happened it would be but a matter of a few
minutes’ time before the crystal was in his own hands. It was true
that Joseph might not know the exact hiding place of the crystal;
what he did know was that the men in the tower would kill his father
if he did not return at once with the prize, and he and the mother
would make a quick search of the house in order to find it and
redeem the father. It did occur to Peter that perhaps Pan Andrew
had deposited it elsewhere, but if the house did not give up its prize,
then they would return and try to torture the information out of the
father.
“Stay,” he said suddenly, just as Joseph’s captor delivered the boy
into his hands, “the hourglass there on the table shows that the
sand has fallen to the second hour. It is time that the trumpet was
sounded from this place, otherwise some one may suspect that
something is wrong and come up here to see. . . . You, boy—you
trumpet sometimes, I know. Surprises you, does it? Peter has eyes
and ears everywhere. So, before we set out to get this precious
stone, take down that trumpet from the wall. . . . No, leave it there a
moment, and come here.”
He led him to the bell rope outside and stood over him.
“Ring twice upon the bell, then get your trumpet and play your
Heynal from the four windows.”
 He watched the boy carefully, with his knife gleaming in his
hands, as Joseph tugged twice at the cord that moved the hammer
against the bell.
“Do as you always do, and play no tricks.”
As Joseph went back to the little room and took up the trumpet
he was thinking of another young trumpeter who, standing in the old
tower over this same spot, had fallen pierced by an arrow while
performing his duty. And it seemed curious that he too was called
upon to show his mettle in much the same way. In his heart much of
the first tumult of fear had died out. There had come to him that gift
of everlasting stanchness which had been one of the most
characteristic qualities of the Polish people. It was perhaps the
inspiration which the thought of that other trumpeter had brought,
for immediately afterward and at the minute that he had thrust the
trumpet through the tower opening on the west, his mind flew back
to his conversation one day with Elzbietka. He had spoken in jest
that day about the Heynal, but she had taken it as a childish secret—
bless her!—he was sure that she would remember.
This hope increased instantly. He knew that Elzbietka was awake
at the second hour; she had known that it would be at that hour
that he would take his father’s place, and if the Heynal was played
straight through and two or three notes were added at the end
where usually the music broke off on the broken note, she would
know that something was wrong. What would she do? Her uncle,
lost in his experiments, would only laugh at her fancy, as he would
call it. Would she dare in the night to go to Jan Kanty? If she did, it
was possible that Kanty could summon the watch quickly enough to
save his father’s life, for he felt in his heart that Peter meant to kill
Pan Andrew after the crystal was found.
It all depended on this. Did Peter know the story of the Tartar
invasion and the broken note at the end of the Heynal? God must be
trusted that he did not. This prayer was on Joseph’s lips as Peter
said, “Now for your music.”
 Up went the trumpet.
Then it seemed to Joseph that he had once done this very thing
before. The whole world changed beneath him. The great stone city
had become wood, and it was everywhere in flames. Men of short
stature and ugly faces were riding about furiously on little horses.
Close at hand a man had descended from his horse and had drawn a
bow from his shoulders and an iron-tipped arrow from a quiver. The
bow bent, the arrow was notched.
He played.
Peter nodded. The Heynal was not new to him, and he knew that
the boy was playing as usual—that is, he knew up to a certain point.
Joseph hesitated at the place where the music ordinarily breaks off—
this time he added three notes of his own which definitely finished
the Heynal. It took courage to play those notes, for he knew not but
that at any moment he might feel the Cossack’s dagger in his throat.
At length he let the trumpet fall and looked about.
The blood surged into his head with a rush. The Cossack was
nodding approval! He did not know, then!
He went to the windows at south, east, and north, successively,
and played as he had already played.
“Now hurry for your lodgings!”
Peter gripped the boy’s arm and pushed him ahead all the way
down the stairs, after giving final orders to the men who guarded
Pan Andrew. They found no one in the square below and slunk along
in the shadows toward the university district. The Cossack was
exulting again that his plans were working, and as he went along he
looked about him for a quiet corner where he could finish Joseph
with his dagger once he had the crystal in his hands and was on the
way back to the tower. Then they would settle with the father and
there would be no one left to give information concerning them. A
company of Armenian merchants would leave the city unhindered in
the course of the following day.
 CHAPTER XII
ELZBIETKA MISSES THE BROKEN NOTE

V ery much earlier on this same eventful night a girlish figure

emerged from the door leading to Alchemist Kreutz’s lodgings
on the third floor of the building where Pan Andrew lived, and
stole quietly down the steps to the second floor. Here she rapped
three times. In a space of perhaps a minute, the door was thrown
back a little, and Joseph’s mother peered cautiously out through the
crack.
“Come in, child,” she said heartily as she recognized Elzbietka’s
face.
“What brings you out so late?” she inquired a moment later as
she shot the heavy bolts back into place and secured the door. “Has
the student Tring been troubling you or your uncle lately, or what is
it? Sit there at the table where I was just finishing my sewing for the
day and tell me the whole story.”
“Yes,” answered the girl, “it is the student Tring. He and uncle are
in the loft now, and I am somewhat frightened—they have been
talking more queerly than ever all this evening.”
“You must stay with me here this night,” the woman said. “It’s a
shame that such a scholar as your uncle should have anything to do
with that student, Tring. I fear that young man very much. He seems
to me like one who has grown old and then become young again.
When he looks at me with those great dark eyes it seems as if he
were thinking of terrible things——”
“I will stay here, and gladly, mother,” she answered, for in these
months of sweet acquaintanceship the affection of the woman and
girl had become much like that which exists between mother and
daughter, “but it is not that I fear anything, myself, from the student
Tring. It is really my uncle’s conduct these few weeks that troubles
me, and more especially his conduct since that night when the men
came here to steal. He is so changed!”
“I have seen,” Joseph’s mother replied. “But has he ever been
cruel to you?”
“Oh, no! Never that. But he is not at all as he was when we first
came here to live. Then he was full of merriment, ready to talk or
laugh with me, eager to go somewhere or to see something that
would be of pleasure to us both. Now he does not seem to think of
me, at all. He is always like one in a dream. Sometimes when I
speak to him, he does not seem to hear. Other times he answers my
questions queerly, saying things that I had not thought of. He is
caught up in something that I fear, and something that has little
good in it.”
“It’s the student Tring who has done all this.”
“Yes, I think that he has done much of it. They two are together
every night, and they work together in the loft above my head. I can
hear them moving about occasionally, though sometimes a terrible
silence is all that there is.”
“My dear child,” the woman laid her work by for the moment,
“this is always your home here. Come here when there is anything
to trouble you. . . . The little bed is always yours. . . . We, too, are
greatly troubled as well, as perhaps you know. Pan Andrew has not
been the same since that accursed night. . . . Yet if one had but
sense, we have here all that should make man happy: children, love,
bread, and a house—why must men be always sighing and striving
for that which they have not?”
“We were so happy before,” continued Elzbietka. “It seems to me
that the student Tring has some charm over my uncle which he
cannot resist.”
 “Heaven help us,” exclaimed the woman, making the sign of the
cross. “And have you any idea what is going on in the loft above
you?”
“None.” The girl shuddered. “It is some terrible thing. To-night
both men spoke in such a peculiar way that I was frightened when
they first came together. And ever since that they have been
speaking more wildly, I think, than ever before. My uncle keeps
saying, ‘This will drive me mad,’ and Tring says to him again, ‘There
is nothing of harm in it. Try once more.’ Then again there is silence
and my uncle speaks shortly, mad things—and I was frightened and
came here.”
“My poor child.”
“Just before I came downstairs Tring was speaking to my uncle
as if he were just a common servant. And my uncle instead of being
angry seemed to be trying to please the student. At last Tring said:
‘This, now, you must do. You must learn the secret which will
change brass into gold. Once you have gold, then you have the
power to do all that man can do. You can go about over the earth
and see all that there is to see, you can study with the most famous
masters and buy all that you please.’ He repeated over and over
again the word ‘gold,’ and it seemed to me that while he was
speaking my uncle was working at something, for he never
answered a word.”
The woman shook her head. “I have known of those who sought
to make gold out of baser metal. But no good ever befell them. . . .”
Then thinking that she needed to draw the girl’s thoughts away from
herself and her troubles, she said, “I am often lonely these nights
when Joseph and his father are away. Yet I often listen for the sound
of the trumpet in the church tower and I know that everything is
well with them.”
“And I. Joseph begins at the second hour. We have a secret, he
and I, and I always listen for him to play.”
 “Bless your heart. Do you mean to say that you lie awake until
the second hour?”
“I do when he is playing. For he is my best friend, and one
should be loyal unto friends.”
“Can you tell when he is playing, and when the father?”
“I could easily at first. Now it is much harder, but I think that I
could distinguish did I not know at what hours each played. His
notes are not quite so pointed as the father’s, but they are becoming
more and more like them all the time.”
The conversation ran to other matters and it grew late. Finally
the woman made up a bed for the girl on a small couch which
Joseph and his father had built. It was close to the outer door, and
directly below the casement, over which a piece of tapestry hung;
the window was open in this fair weather, and Elzbietka could easily
hear noises from outside, especially the sound of the church bells
and the trumpet, for the window faced in the direction of the tower.
Joseph’s mother retired to the second room, where she slept when
Joseph was at the church, and Elzbietka, without undressing, for she
feared lest the alchemist should call her suddenly, threw herself on
the couch and tried to sleep.
She found sleep impossible. Visions of some terrible thing
happening to her uncle and the student kept her thoughts boiling
like water in a kettle. She kept remembering the words that other
people had said, the remarks made by other students, the whispers
up and down the lane that Pan Kreutz was engaged in some terrible
work of Black Magic.
It was a superstitious age, an age when people believed that
powers of evil could be called upon, like human beings, to perform
certain dark deeds—that souls of the dead forever haunted certain
lonely places on earth and would answer a question if one but knew
how to address them. If a black cat crossed one’s path, then bad
luck was sure to follow; if an owl hooted at exactly midnight from
the tower of some deserted church then the witches were riding
through the air on brooms or branches; if a dog howled in the night
it was a sign that some one living near by was about to die.
There were people who fostered such ideas for their own benefit.
They were for the most part necromancers or magicians who took
the gold of credulous ones for telling them of their own futures or
for warding off some impending evil from them. Perhaps some few
of these believed themselves honest; the greater number were
thoroughly dishonest and unscrupulous, men who wore dark robes
and practiced dark ways simply to frighten superstitious folk into
giving them money. These magicians sold articles called “tokens”
which were guaranteed to keep away certain evils. A little ball of
black stone would prevent the possessor from being bitten by
snakes. The little yellow, glasslike substance, created when lightning
struck in sand and melted the fine particles, was greatly valued;
crumbled and taken internally it would prevent stomach trouble.
Worn about the neck in a small bag it would keep off lightning.
Certain little bones from the bodies of cats, dogs, and hares had
properties of benefit; the heart of a frog had many mystic qualities.
It was quite apparent in the case of the alchemist, Kreutz, that
something was going on that was undermining his health and
perhaps his reason. Such a change as had come over him was not at
all normal in a man with such a strong body and mind as he
possessed. And as Elzbietka lay awake thinking of one thing after
another she became a prey to many strange fears, among them this
one, that Kreutz was no longer the master of his own soul, that
somehow the student Tring had become the master of it; that Tring
had discovered something in his studies which he was working out
at the expense of the man who naturally should have been his
teacher and master.
The trumpet had in the meanwhile sounded the first hour, but
still she was not able to sleep. Her natural thoughts of her uncle and
Tring were followed by a flood of fanciful imaginings, and in them
she saw the figures warped and distorted out of their natural
proportions; persons who are sick and persons who carry troubles in
their minds experience this frequently, at a time when the body is
tired and aching for sleep and yet when the mind is overactive with
worries. Her uncle at one minute of normal and ordinary size
seemed at intervals to shrink or enlarge without warning; Tring was
now a student of the collegiate type, now a nightmare of a thing
with the head of a pumpkin that grew until the whole sky was filled
with the darkness of his shadow. They were engaged in many
nefarious enterprises: they were releasing great hordes of bats from
baskets, bats that they had created out of old sandals; they were
leaping into the air and catching huge birds like eagles which they
were imprisoning under the roof of the loft; they were mixing fiery
liquids that hissed and bubbled and foamed—they were doing a
thousand things at once and all of them somehow of evil. For nearly
an hour these phantoms of half sleep danced in her brain, and then
suddenly the bell on the tower sounded twice.
“The second hour,” she exclaimed, the drowsy phantoms of her
brain taking sudden flight.
The Heynal began. “That is Joseph,” she thought.
She was humming the tune, already following him note by note—
she reached the place where the hymn ended, and ceased there, to
wait until he began to play again from the second of the four
windows. But the next second she realized to her vast amazement
that Joseph had not stopped upon the broken note that came at the
end of the Heynal, but had added a note or two, and brought the
little hymn to an end in the way that pieces of music usually end.
Elzbietka sat upright on the bed, although she was quite certain
that some trick had been played upon her by her senses. “Perhaps I
was but half awake,” she thought. “I will listen more closely when he
plays it the second time.”
He began to play from the south side. This time she did not hum
the tune over but followed each note intently. When he had finished
she realized that for the second time he had not stopped upon the
broken note but had gone ahead with the additional notes which
made the Heynal sound like a finished piece of music and not one
that was broken off.

“He is playing it wrongly,” she repeated to herself.

He played next on the east side but the wind carried the sound
away this time. When he came to the last window, the window on
the north, the sound came clearly to Elzbietka’s ears. “This time I
shall know,” she said.
At first she thought that he was going to stop upon the broken
note, for he hesitated there, but then he went on ahead as if to say,
“I know that I should stop here, but am not stopping,” and added
the extra notes which finished the strain, just as the young
trumpeter would probably have finished it had he not been shot
down by the Tartar bowman.
Elzbietka was off the bed and on her feet. . . . He had played it in
such fashion deliberately! Joseph was far too good a trumpeter to
make the same mistake at least three times.
But what—what—could it mean? That Joseph was in some
trouble? But there was the great alarm bell, which once sounded
would rouse the town in an incredibly short time. This bell was
always employed in times of fire, invasion, defense, and such various
events as riots, the visit of a foreign king, the declaration of war——
 He certainly would not trifle with such a sacred thing as the
Heynal for a mere pastime—therefore, why, why, why, did he not
ring the bell?
There could be but one answer! The girl had half realized it with
the very first false note of the first playing of the Heynal. This was a
signal to her—to her, Elzbietka Kreutz! Joseph was in some strange,
some unusual kind of distress! He counted upon her to remember
the little secret that he had made in joking, he counted upon her to
understand that he was in trouble. Why, perhaps he was even held
by force—here her intuition actually leaped to the truth—perhaps
some person was watching him so that he could not ring the bell!
Yes, it was for her ears that he was playing.
And she must act—she must help Joseph—at once—at once.
Only, what was the wisest course? She could not bring herself to
alarm the boy’s mother—should she call her uncle? He was still with
Johann Tring in the loft—the light was there and there had been no
sound of the student descending. Both, she knew, would laugh at
her fears and send her back to bed. Therefore she moved quietly
from the couch across the floor to the door where she threw back
the bolts and drew the door open. Stepping across the threshold she
closed the door and ascended to her own lodging where she
procured the key to the outer door, and threw a cloak about her
head and shoulders. In a very short time she was in the street.
At such an hour as this in the morning, it was dangerous for an
unarmed man, and even more for an unarmed woman, to pass
through the streets. Late roisterers were abroad, gamblers,
drunkards, thieves, the very filth and scum of the city, were
crouching in corners or picking the pockets of some man who had
been struck down from behind. The city watch were preventive
enough against crime if they responded in numbers large enough to
cope with thieves and murderers who often worked in bands, but
the law satisfied itself with treating most cruelly the few prisoners
that fell into its clutches, and let the great majority of offenders go
unmolested. Therefore a man’s best friend in dark city streets,
particularly at such a late hour as this, was his good sword or
cudgel.
Once outside the building wall Elzbietka breathed a prayer to her
patron saint, the good Elizabeth, and observing in the bright light of
the moon that the Street of the Pigeons was for the moment empty,
kept her back close to the wall and edged her way slowly in the
wall’s shadow to the cross street at the left, through which she had
planned to dart for St. Ann’s Street, only a block distant. She was at
the very corner and had climbed out from the sheltering buttress of
the wall when there came the sound of men’s voices from the Street
of the Pigeons directly behind her. Without turning about to see who
was there she darted around the corner into the cross street and
broke into a run over its rough cobbles.
Some one, however, had seen her. She heard a voice cry, “Who is
there?” and there was the sound of feet pursuing her.
“A woman, as I live,” she heard a pursuer say as she dashed
ahead. The moon seemed to hang over the very head of the cross
street, so that none of the buildings threw a shadow. The pursuers
had already turned the corner from the Street of the Pigeons and
came flying ahead in great leaps and bounds.
She thought of Tartars and Peter of the Button Face, but it was
no such folk as that who followed her. This small company of men
was but a band of rags and tatters, beggars and petty thieves and
filthy cozeners, seeking only to fleece some passer-by of a few grosz
in order to get drinks or a hard corner in which to sleep. A girl of her
age was just such prey as these wretched people sought, for they
could plunder her without fear of harm, and her clothing or perhaps
some bundle that she carried would bring a few coins for their need.
“Stop! Stop! We are friends,” the first of them called out. “We
would not harm a woman in the street at such an hour. Listen, we
will go with you where you are going.” But the tone of the voice only
made Elzbietka run the harder.
 Into St. Ann’s Street she turned at length, with the men close
behind. Her one hope now was that Jan Kanty would answer his bell
quickly, for if she did not slip inside almost immediately, the men
following would catch up to her.
However, summons for help from Jan Kanty seldom waited long
without an answer. He had been busy all that night with his writings,
at which he worked incessantly, when he was not aiding some
world-wrecked soul—writings which were to prove of inestimable
value to the university and the whole world of culture after his
death. Therefore the ringing of the bell took him but a few steps
from his work. As he unlocked the door and flung it open the girl
darted by him and into the house.
“It is I, Elzbietka Kreutz,” she said. “Good father, I come with
news that needs action, I think, and that immediately. But first close
the door, since there are some pursuing me.”
The scholar closed the door. If he felt astonishment at the sight
of a young girl flying through the streets at such an hour, he did not
show it. He was, as a matter of fact, used to all kinds of strange
happenings. Even when the wretched beggars raced past the door
wondering what had become of their victim, he had an impulse to go
out and talk to them and eventually share his purse with them, since
he knew that it was only poverty and starvation that drove them to
such extremes. But recognizing the girl’s distress and her immediate
need for him, he closed the door and led the way into his study.
“What has happened, daughter? Has there been a robbery again
in the house or has thine uncle gotten himself into some difficulty?
Something of the sort there is, I feel and know.”
She recited her story as best she could, for she was short-
breathed from running and from her anxiety for Joseph. If only he
would not smile! If only he would not think that she had been
dreaming! But the venerable scholar was far from smiling.
“You are right,” he exclaimed spiritedly, almost before she had
finished her tale. “There is no time to wait. He is in some grave
danger which may the good God divert from him. Remain here
where you will be safe. I will at once send a servant of the university
to call the watch, and will go with them myself to the tower. I fear
something of evil has happened.”
A few minutes later thirty men of the city watch, in heavy armor,
were marching upon the church. They found first the church
watchman securely bound in the churchyard and released him. Then
they entered the tower through the unlocked door, and began
silently and cautiously to climb the stairs.
In the meantime the band of Cossacks high up in the tower
above had begun to grow weary of this excursion. At first the idea of
an attack in mid-air, and in a church tower at that, had piqued their
curiosity and aroused their thirst for adventure, since such an attack
had heretofore been entirely outside their experience. And when
earlier in the evening Peter had called for the ten volunteers he
needed, not one man among them could be induced to remain
behind.
But the affair had proved to be of a simplicity that had no appeal
for men so bloodthirsty. In truth, so well had Peter’s plans been laid,
and so secure from intrusion did they feel in this lofty stronghold,
and so irksome was the waiting for their leader, that they had
succumbed one by one to the drowsiness of the early morning hour
and with the exception of the one man who stood guard over the
trumpeter, they were sprawled out idly, or were dozing.
Therefore men of the city watch, when they had crept noiselessly
to the top, surprised them completely. In truth they were captives
before they were quite on their guard or realized what was
happening. Pan Andrew’s guard himself did not have time to carry
out the leader’s command—he was in fact made prisoner, as he was
upon the point of delivering a deathblow.
While they were binding the last prisoner’s arms, Joseph came
running and leaping up the steps and threw himself into his father’s
embrace.
 “Father, father,” he shouted excitedly, “it was Elzbietka who did
this.” His eyes were shining as he thought about it. “Elzbietka—
Elzbietka,” he kept repeating. “She heard me sound the trumpet in a
different fashion from the way I usually sound it, for to-night I did
not stop the Heynal upon the broken note, but played several notes
more. She ran through the night alone to Jan Kanty’s and he
aroused the city watch. I just met him at the foot of the stairs and
he told me the whole story.”
“Bless the girl,” said the father, tears rising to his eyes. “And you,
my son, how did you get free? I feared——”
“The man who was dragging me toward our home heard the
watch marching through the street, and when he realized that they
were going toward the church he took himself off like lightning into
the darkness without another thought for me. But Elzbietka is at the
scholar’s dwelling in the university building, waiting. I must go to her
quickly and tell her all, and thank her that we are alive this night.”
Pan Andrew was busy with his own thoughts when the watch
finally marched away with their prisoners.
The Great Tarnov Crystal! The Great Tarnov Crystal! That was
what the Tartar said he had come for. Was it possible that the man
had been telling the truth? For what other reason could he have
surprised him thus in the tower? For what other reason the hurried
expedition into the town with the boy, Joseph, and the instructions
he had left with his men? If it had been revenge alone that the man
was seeking, then he and Joseph would never have remained alive
until now. But if the man had not obtained the crystal on the night
of his attack upon his lodgings, then what in the name of heaven
and earth had happened to it on that night, and where was the
crystal now?
 CHAPTER XIII
THE GREAT TARNOV CRYSTAL

I t was late one evening in April, a few weeks after the

unsuccessful attack of Peter upon the tower, that the alchemist,
Kreutz, and the student, Johann Tring, were sitting upon rude
stools in the loft above the alchemist’s lodging, arguing with much
heat some question that had arisen between them. The day had
been sultry for early spring and the sun was setting red over the
distant hills, flooding with its crimson the high mound called the
Krakus Mound over beyond the river on the road to Wieliczka and
the salt mines.
Tring sat where he could see the sunshine through the little
window, but the alchemist sat within the gathering darkness of the
room. Above their heads on the slanting walls vials and glass tubes
of the alchemist’s craft gleamed like precious stones, and every now
and then some substance lying upon the hot coals of the braziers
would hiss up into a little flame and smoke, for all the world like a
serpent suddenly raising its slender head and coils above a quiet
patch of grass.
“I tell you that I have had enough,” the alchemist replied to some
remark of the student’s. “I am ready to forswear this scientific
experiment into which we have so boldly launched and go back to
my old studies which are much better suited to a God-fearing man.”
Tring laughed, low but maliciously. “So that is where your
courage lies,” he answered. “That is the crown of valor that you
boast in exploring the wonders of the unknown world. Come,” he
added after a minute, as if changing his tactics in dealing with this
man who was now thoroughly in his power, or so he thought, “come
and put a better complexion upon things; we are already past the
hardest stretch of the road—if there is to be found the solution to
that problem upon which we both have spent so much time, it will
be found so much the more readily now because of the sacrifices
that we have already made for it. Are the trances tiring you beyond
endurance?”
The alchemist let his head sink into his hands. “I am tired—I am
tired,” was all that he could say.
Tring regarded him with disgust, but held back the angry words
which sprang to his lips and expressed himself more gently.
“Then if there is a fault it must lie with you, Pan Kreutz,” he said.
“It is beyond my understanding that such a man as you should find
exhaustion in these simple experiments that I have performed. Many
another person I have put into trances similar to yours, and for
longer periods of time, too, and there has been no harm, nay, nor
physical exhaustion from it.”
“Alas,” the alchemist moaned as if making a confession, “I have
been in trances other than those of your making, and almost
continually, too.”
“What?” Tring leaped to his feet in astonishment. “What do you
say? You have been in trances induced by others? Other men share
our secrets, then? Who may it be that is also a master of this rare
craft? I had thought that no others, save I, in this town were able to
bring about such trances.” He glared at Kreutz with open hatred and
let his fingers stray as well to the handle of a short knife that he
carried in his belt, for although he was but a young man, he took his
occult powers very seriously. There was as well an element of fear in
his emotions, since the civil authorities of that day dealt usually in
short and severe fashion with persons brought before magistrates on
the charge of indulging in dark or occult practices. Death even was
prescribed as punishment for some, although disfiguring, whipping,
stocks, and banishment were the most common penalties.
 Tring’s powers, though mysterious in those days, could be easily
explained in ours. The so-called trances into which certain persons
have the power to send others we call in these times merely
hypnotic sleep. Hypnotism in the days when all men and women
were to an extent superstitious was looked upon as one of the very
worst works of a malignant devil upon earth. Tring possessed to
some extent the ability to summon hypnotic sleep to a willing
patient, and the alchemist had become a too willing patient in his
endeavor to discover the secret that Tring had made appear so
desirable.
And as is the case with most practitioners of hypnotism and their
subjects, the hypnotist had gained, little by little, more and more
power over his co-worker, until in a few months the alchemist had
become merely a tool in the hands of Tring, who, knowing his ability
and scholarly accomplishments, did not hesitate to use them for his
own ends. He did this, however, with great caution, and enjoined
ever upon the alchemist the need for the utmost secrecy, for if it had
become known that such tricks were being practiced, the law would
make short shrift of both.
“No man,” answered the wretched alchemist, “no man, but
perhaps—devils!”
“Devils?” Tring stood motionless, thunderstruck. Was the
alchemist losing his mind?
“Yes, devils. I can stand it no longer.” The alchemist rose from his
stool and turned upon Tring. “You who have powers greater than
man, know most of what is passing in my soul. The secrets of my
craft, the sciences of actions and reactions—all these you know. But
I hold from you one secret, one great secret which has bowed my
shoulders with care and blackened my heart with crime. Come,
watch, I will show you something that has powers beyond those of
which you dream. See . . .” His accents became wilder and his voice
trembled. He shuffled about the attic as if making preparations for
some experiment. He set up a tripod in the very middle of the room
and linked the top with chains as if he were to set a bowl upon it; he
unlocked a great chest that stood in one corner under the eaves and
took from it some object wrapped in black cloths, and this object he
placed upon the tripod.
“Now let us have a light,” he said.
He shook some powder into a brazier full of coals which suddenly
leaped into flame. As the whole room burst into existence with the
illumination there appeared most prominently in it the tripod which
bore the covered mystery. The alchemist whipped the cloth covering
away.
It was as if he had uncovered a diamond of the finest water!
Upon the brass top of the tripod gleamed in that instant a very
miracle of color and light; the object itself was about the size of a
man’s head. Upon this exquisite thing no artificial effort of man had
been expended; it was as nature had fashioned it in the depths of
some subterranean grotto where drops of water falling in steady
succession for thousands and thousands of years had slowly created
it. The outer layers were clear like the water of a mountain spring;
as the eye fell farther and farther within the surface a bluish tint was
perceptible and at the very center there was a coloring of rose. Such
was its absolute beauty that whoever looked into its depths seemed
to be gazing into a sea without limit.
 “In the name of Heaven,” shrieked Tring, “what is this?”
The alchemist spoke in a low voice as one might speak in a
church: “The Great Tarnov Crystal.”
“The Great Tarnov Crystal!” repeated Tring. “The Great Tarnov
Crystal! . . . Why, that is the stone for which alchemists and workers
of magic have been searching these hundreds of years. The Great
Tarnov Crystal!” He shouted it almost in high excitement. “Why,
man, we have here the greatest scientific treasure of all ages.” He
began to skip about in transports as the possibilities of the treasure’s
possession leaped into his mind. “And now I understand,” he
continued. “Indeed you have been under the hand of a devil if you
have been gazing into that thing. Why, do you know that this stone
can send a man into a trance in which all manner of truths will be
divulged? Do you know that we can learn now for a certainty the
very secret that we have been seeking?” And going close to the
stone, he gazed into its depths as a thirsty man might gaze into a
well of water.
 There was this curious property of the Great Tarnov Crystal, and
perhaps of all great crystals in the world’s history, that it never
presented the same vista twice to the man who looked within its
depths. Now this may have been due to many things, to the fact
that the lights surrounding it were never twice the same, and also
perhaps to this, that the crystal had the strange property of
reflecting back to the observer the very thoughts that were tucked
away deeply in his head. What drew men to the Tarnov Crystal in
the beginning was, of course, its beauty, its color, its light, its
constantly changing vistas, and besides these, there was that
indefinable fascination that all such stones have. Diamonds, as well,
possess this fascinating power to a high degree though the diamond
is, of course, a small stone, and not large enough to hold the
concentrated focus of two eyes for a very long time; the crystal by
reason of its size possesses this quality according to its fineness.
The Tarnov Crystal was the finest crystal known to the magicians
of the Middle Ages. And although magic was frowned upon by
scholars and men of science such as astronomers and alchemists,
still there was no distinct line between science and magic, with the
result that many of these men found themselves practicing magic
when they had intended only to make scientific investigations. It was
even so with Pan Kreutz, who ordinarily had but little use for magic
or the Black Arts in any form—until now he had come entirely under
the domination of the student Tring whose enthusiasm had carried
him away.
“I tell you that I have had enough,” the alchemist repeated now.
“I have perjured my soul to obtain this stone and I am ready to
return it to its rightful owners. This stone is a thing of wickedness
and blood and it has a woeful history, as old perhaps as the world
itself.”
“Return it!” shouted Tring. “Return it! Why, Pan Kreutz, listen to
my reasoning. I know not how you have come by this thing—I do
not ask at present—but you would be scarce the man I took you for
did you not use it for the purpose that we need it. After that we may