Father Damien proceeded to intone the marriage service according to the Roman Church. Roger knew enough Latin to realise that, despite the bizarre surroundings, there was no deviation from it which could later enable Charles or himself to state on oath that the couple had not been properly married. At the right moment the witch, who was standing beside Jemima, reached behind the girl's back, touched Charles on the elbow and pressed a wedding ring into his hand. He put it on Jemima's finger and they both made the proper responses. Father Damien then gave them the orthodox blessing.
Even now Roger was still contemplating making a desperate effort to break up the ceremony, but the moment he took one short step sideways, Magog grabbed the cord round his neck and pulled it taut. He resigned himself then to witnessing the consummation of the marriage, which was to take place before them on the altar slab.
But that was not yet to be. The witch kissed Jemima, then drew her aside and said to the others, 'We have yet to celebrate a second Mass to propitiate the great Bast and the master of us all, Prince Lucifer, Son of the Morning.'
At a sign from her, Gog and Magog jerked down the cords about Charles's and Roger's necks. As they put up their hands to prevent themselves from being throttled, the two peasants tied the ends of the cords to those attached to their captives' ankles. Both struggled wildly for a moment, but with their heads strained back, effective resistance was impossible. Their arms were seized and their hands once more bound behind them. They were then dragged a few feet from the altar and forced down on their knees. In that position the slackening of the cords down their backs enabled them to breathe freely again, but they could not come to their feet without choking themselves.
Footsteps at the far end of the chapel caught their attention and caused them to look in that direction. Three figures had emerged from a doorway down there, and could be clearly seen in the bright moonlight: a man, a girl and a lamb. The man was Aboe. With his right hand he held the girl by the elbow, in his left hand he held a lead attached to a collar round the neck of the lamb. The girl was sheathed in the long, white robe of a conventional bride and had a wreath of orange blossom on her head. Since she was veiled Roger and Charles could not see her features distinctly at that distance, but they knew she must be Susan.
As she approached she could not have helped seeing them, but she showed no sign of having done so. Her steps were even and her head held high. Roger concluded that she had been either drugged or mesmerised. Charles's face expressed shocked horror when he realised what was about to happen. Susan was about to be laid on the altar so that a Black Mass could be held upon her body. The priest would rape her. The lamb was to be sacrificed and, when it had been slaughtered, they would all be made to drink its blood. In agonised fury he shouted at the witch :
'You can't do this! You promised that no harm should be done to her! You swore it!'
Katie O'Brien's scarlet lips opened wide in an amused laugh, then she replied, 'You poor fool, you made me swear to God. I do not recognise your God. You should have made me swear to him you call Satan.'
'May you rot in hell!' Charles cried, and tried to get to his feet, but fell back again, choked by the rope around his neck.
Susan had not taken the least notice of the altercation. In front of the altar she halted. Aboe let go her arm and stepped back several paces from her. Father Damien began to recite the Lord's Prayer backwards in Latin. Roger's face was wet with sweat. Charles continued to hurl curses at the witch.
Suddenly Susan erupted from her trance-like stillness. Whipping a dagger from under her full robe, she turned and sprang with lightning swiftness at Jemima. Raising the dagger high, she screamed:
'False friend! Liar! Judas! Betrayer of trust! You've brought your death upon yourself.'
Jemima, her dark eyes starting from her head in sudden terror, was just in time to throw up her hand and grasp Susan's wrist. For a moment they struggled violently. The priest abruptly ceased his blasphemous prayer. Aboe leapt forward, but he had been standing a dozen paces away on the left side of the altar. Katie, to the right of it, was much closer. Springing toward Susan, she made a grab at the hair at the back of the girl's head, but her fingers closed only over the veil. The jerk upon it threw Susan off balance. The two girls fell in a writhing heap on the stone floor.
Aboe threw himself on Susan and dragged her off Jemima, who remained groaning where she lay, the hilt of the dagger protruding from her right breast.
The witch fell to her knees, threw her arms round her daughter, raised her head to her own lap and moaned, 'My darling! How could this have happened ? The drug could not have taken effect. How did she get possession of that dagger?'
In a hoarse voice Jemima panted, ‘I gave . . . gave it to her. And . . . and I didn't give her the drug.'
'But why, child? Why?' the witch asked in an agonised voice.
'Because... because ...' came the gasping reply. 'That stinking beast, Father Damien. He ... he has been pestering me for weeks. He came to my room ... my room three nights ago. I ... I was sound asleep. He ripped the bedclothes off and . . . and was on me ... on me before I realised what ... what was happening. To ... to be avenged on him I ... I gave Susan the knife. Told her what to do. Pretend . . . pretend to be drugged then . . . then kill him with it.'
Jemima's eyes closed, her head sagged and those about her realised that she was dead.
Sobbing, the witch came to her feet. For a moment she .looked slowly round as though half dazed. Then her glance fell on Susan. Her beautiful face became distorted with rage, and she screamed:
'It is you that killed her! You've killed my beautiful daughter. After you'd been raped during the ceremony, I'd meant to let you go. To throw you out. But not now! Not now. Prince Lucifer would prefer human blood to that of a lamb representing Jesus. After we have offered up your virginity, your throat I'll cut myself.'
Turning her flashing eyes on Aboe, she yelled, 'Throw the bitch on the altar. We've said prayers enough. Hold her down for Father Damien.'
Aboe towered above Susan, holding her arms behind her back. Shifting his grip, he picked her up and threw her face upward on the altar. Father Damien grinned down at her. His mouth was working, and saliva ran from the corners. Screaming, Susan fought with tooth and nail. Her veil and the wreath of orange blossom had fallen off. Her auburn hair was in wild disorder as she jerked up her head and bit Aboe savagely in the arm. He let out a yelp of pain, then called Gog and Magog to his assistance. Gog grabbed her hands and pulled them up above her head. Aboe seized the hem of her skirt and wrenched it back, revealing her body naked up to the navel. Then he and the negro each seized an ankle and pulled her legs apart. Father Damien had moved round to the end of the altar, facing her. Opening wide his cope, he gave a gloating chuckle as he exposed himself to her. Held down though she was her eyes stared up at him, fixed in fear on his enormous genitals.
Charles had shut his eyes and was sobbing. Roger stared aghast at this bestial spectacle, overwhelmed with dismay that he was powerless to prevent its consummation.
Suddenly he became conscious of an unseen presence beside him. Silently, in his mind, the presence spoke and he knew it to be the voice of the Sagamore, Morning Star.
'It was because I foresaw this that I made you my brother.'
Instantly, with all the power of his lungs, Roger yelled, 'The Frog! The Frog! He who is of Water, Earth and Air. The Creator, the beginning of all things! To defeat this Evil I call upon the Power of the Frog.'
Susan ceased screaming. Everyone present became deadly still. They remained rigid, as though a tableau in a waxworks show. For a moment there was utter stillness, and it seemed as though the dust of ages was falling silently upon them. Then there came the sound of lapping water. The cords that bound Roger and Charles had fallen from them. Roger came to his feet and saw in the moonlight that the waters of the lake were sweeping away from the castle. Gog and Magog saw that, too. Impelled by a primitive, animal instinct to save themselves, they bounded from the altar, leapt down the tumbled stones into the mud and, frantic with terror, raced neck to neck to the shore.