'I'll do that,' Wash agreed. Then, raising his voice, he turned to the others. 'Get moving, now! Two of you give a hand to the Master, here. The rest of you beat it back to the transport. And make it snappy. When you hit the base you know what to do.'

The fog still hung thick outside the chapel. It was that which had enabled Barney to get clean away. Wash did not delay to practise a magic which would have dispersed it, as the men of his coven were all so familiar with the ruins of the Abbey and the wood beyond that with their torches they could quite well find their way through them.

Except for the two who had come forward to support Lothar, they hurried off and were swiftly swallowed up in the greyish darkness. The Great Ram refused the aid of the two men who remained, but accepted their guidance and, with one of them carrying his head-dress, while the other shone a torch, they set off along the now trampled path through the sea of weeds that carpeted the ground between the mounds of stone. Wash, grasping Mary firmly by the arm, brought up the rear.

On reaching the far side of the wood they emerged abruptly from the belt of fog just in time to see three cars, which had been hidden among the trees, carry away the other members of the Brotherhood, all of whom had removed the monks' robes that had concealed their uniforms. Wash ordered the two men who were escorting the Great Ram to take his robe and put it with his mask in the boot of his car, then follow with it. Lothar himself he installed in the front passenger seat of his own car, while Mary squeezed herself into the back among the pile of luggage. Having put his head-dress and robe into the boot, Wash came round to the driver's seat and a minute later they were bumping their way back along the track to the road.

The drive lasted for some fifteen minutes during which, for the first time in what seemed many hours, but actually was little more than one, Mary breathed freely again. She had saved her dear Barney and had herself been spared the gruelling infliction of initiation. Lothar's threat to reduce her to a ghoulish physical wreck remained. But Wash had saved her from that, at least for the time being; and she had an optimistic feeling that, now he had so clearly shown that he had fallen in love with her, somehow he would manage to ensure that she escaped the Great Ram's vengeance.