"Come along, old man! Thou hast eluded me this long time--thanks to an especial favor. Thou hast reached the years of Mathusale. If every one lived as thou hast, I would have no work on earth. Come along, quick. Regulate thy affairs, bid farewell to thy garden, because, with the setting sun, I lead thee forth with me."
"O my good dame! if you would but pity me! Ah! yes, if you would have some pity, you would let me live some few days more--only _one_ day, then. It is so good to live!"
"No, nothing; not one moment more," replied the sinister guest in a harsh and dry voice.
"At least, then, let me once more eat of the fruit of my fig-tree. I have loved them so well; it will be a last consolation to me. But I am too weak to shake the tree, and too old to reach those highest branches. Do you go up, and gather me that fig up there; it is so thoroughly ripened by our eastern sun."
"Most willingly. See, old man, I will show thee that Death is not as surly as 'tis said she is."
Then placing her hour-glass and scythe at the foot of the tree, the unlucky dame climbed up; but scarcely had she pressed her foot upon the branches, than, lo! they sprang up as if from her tread, closed around and so shut in the impudent wight that she could not even stir. She called; she cried aloud, then moaned and supplicated. Philomen renewed his humble petition, but she persistently refused.
"Very well! I only want five hundred years, five centuries more!" And raising his head menacingly, he took up the hour-glass and scythe, quietly returning to his cabin. Every morning he returned, imposed his conditions of release, which Death, becoming more and more irritated, as obstinately refused. Then he would go back patiently to his cabin. On the third night he saw a dark figure, with glittering eyes, prowling round the foot of his tree. He listened, and heard this conversation. Now, you must know that this was the Devil, who came to make his complaint: "What dost thou there, thou idler? Thou no longer sendest me work to do. I am ruined by thy delay."
But the terrible accomplice could do nothing; because he who binds on earth as he binds in heaven had bound her so firmly that Death herself could not undo it.