III
When the Pope recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, with slight symptoms of fever. His first care was to summon Cardinal Barbadico, and confer with him respecting the surprising adventures which had recently befallen them. To his amazement, the Cardinal’s mind seemed an entire blank on the subject. He admitted having made his customary report to his Holiness the preceding night, but knew nothing of any supernatural ratcatcher, and nothing of any midnight rendezvous at the Appartamento Borgia. Investigation seemed to justify his nescience; no vestige of the man of rats or of his shop could be discovered; and the Borgian apartments, opened and carefully searched through, revealed no trace of having been visited for many years. The Pope’s book of exorcisms was in its proper place, his vial of holy water stood unbroken upon his table; and his chamberlains deposed that they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual hour. His illusion was at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly vivid dream; but when he declared his intention of actually holding a service and conducting a procession for the weal of his namesake and predecessor, the conviction became universal that the rats had effected a lodgement in his Holiness’s upper storeys.
Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that on the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of Rome. As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and monasteries in the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst, marched, carrying candles, intoning chants, and, with many a secret shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven for the repose of Alexander the Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by another procession precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive, but more grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and pageants of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat and lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the rising to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber, which they would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there a huge rift opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated themselves. Their descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as Vulcan occupied in falling from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last tail was over the brink, the gulf closed as effectually as the gulf in the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius, not leaving the slightest inequality by which any could detect it.
Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth from his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who appeared desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were exchanged, and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, corpulent, elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander the Sixth, accoutred with the official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, who rose slowly into the air as though he had been inflated with hydrogen.
“To your prayers!” cried Alexander the Eighth, and gave the example. The priesthood resumed its chants, the multitude dropped upon their knees. Their orisons seemed to speed the ascending figure, which was rising rapidly, when suddenly appeared in air Luxury, Simony, and Cruelty, contending which should receive the Holy Father into her bosom. [*] Borgia struck at them with his crozier, and seemed to be keeping them at bay, when a cloud wrapped the group from the sight of men. Thunder roared, lightning glared, the rush of waters blended with the ejaculations of the people and the yet more tempestuous rushing of the rats. Accompanied as he was, it is not probable that Alexander passed, like Dante’s sigh, “beyond the sphere that doth all spheres enfold”; but, as he was never again seen on earth, it is not doubted that he attained at least as far as the moon.
*) Per aver riposo
Portato fu fra l’anime beate
Lo spirito di Alessandro glorioso;
Del qual seguiro le sante pedate
Tre sue familiari e care ancelle,
Lussuria, Simonia, e Crudeltate.
—MACHIAVELLI, Decennale Primo.
THE REWARDS OF INDUSTRY
In China, under the Tang dynasty, early in the seventh century of the Christian era, lived a learned and virtuous, but poor mandarin who had three sons, Fu-su, Tu-sin, and Wang-li. Fu-su and Tu-sin were young men of active minds, always labouring to find out something new and useful. Wang-li was clever too, but only in games of skill, in which he attained great proficiency.
Fu-su and Tu-sin continually talked to each other of the wonderful inventions they would make when they arrived at man’s estate, and of the wealth and renown they promised themselves thereby. Their conversation seldom reached the ears of Wang-li, for he rarely lifted his eyes from the chess-board on which he solved his problems. But their father was more attentive, and one day he said:
“I fear, my sons, that among your multifarious pursuits and studies you must have omitted to include that of the laws of your country, or you would have learned that fortune is not to be acquired by the means which you have proposed to yourselves.”
“How so, father?” asked they.
“It hath been justly deemed by our ancestors,” said the old man, “that the reverence due to the great men who are worshipped in our temples, by reason of our indebtedness to them for the arts of life, could not but become impaired if their posterity were suffered to eclipse their fame by new discoveries, or presumptuously amend what might appear imperfect in their productions. It is therefore, by an edict of the Emperor Suen, forbidden to invent anything; and by a statute of the Emperor Wu-chi it is further provided that nothing hitherto invented shall be improved. My predecessor in the small office I hold was deprived of it for saying that in his judgment money ought to be made round instead of square, and I have myself run risk of my life for seeking to combine a small file with a pair of tweezers.”
“If this is the case,” said the young men, “our fatherland is not the place for us.” And they embraced their father, and departed. Of their brother Wang-li they took no farewell, inasmuch as he was absorbed in a chess problem. Before separating, they agreed to meet on the same spot after thirty years, with the treasure which they doubted not to have acquired by the exercise of their inventive faculties in foreign lands. They further covenanted that if either had missed his reward the other should share his possessions with him.
Fu-su repaired to the artists who cut out characters in blocks of hard wood, to the end that books may be printed from the same. When he had fathomed their mystery he betook himself to a brass-founder, and learned how to cast in metal. He then sought a learned man who had travelled much, and made himself acquainted with the Greek, Persian, and Arabic languages. Then he cast a number of Greek characters in type, and putting them into a bag and providing himself with some wooden letter-tablets of his own carving, he departed to seek his fortune. After innumerable hardships and perils he arrived in the land of Persia, and inquired for the great king.
“The great king is dead,” they told him, “and his head is entirely separated from his body. There is now no king in Persia, great or small,”
“Where shall I find another great king?” demanded he.
“In the city of Alexandria,” replied they, “where the Commander of the Faithful is busy introducing the religion of the Prophet.”
Fu-su passed to Alexandria, carrying his types and tablets.
As he entered the gates he remarked an enormous cloud of smoke, which seemed to darken the whole city. Before he could inquire the reason, the guard arrested him as a stranger, and conducted him to the presence of the Caliph Omar.
“Know, O Caliph,” said Fu-su, “that my countrymen are at once the wisest of mankind and the stupidest. They have invented an art for the preservation of letters and the diffusion of knowledge, which the sages of Greece and India never knew, but they have not learned to take, and they refuse to be taught how to take, the one little step further necessary to render it generally profitable to mankind.”
And producing his tablets and types, he explained to the Caliph the entire mystery of the art of printing.
“Thou seemest to be ignorant,” said Omar, “that we have but yesterday condemned and excommunicated all books, and banished the same from the face of the earth, seeing that they contain either that which is contrary to the Koran, in which case they are impious, or that which is agreeable to the Koran, in which case they are superfluous. Thou art further unaware, as it would seem, that the smoke which shrouds the city proceeds from the library of the unbelievers, consumed by our orders. It will be meet to burn thee along with it.”
“O Commander of the Faithful,” said an officer, “of a surety the last scroll of the accursed ceased to flame even as this infidel entered the city.”
“If it be so,” said Omar, “we will not burn him, seeing that we have taken away from him the occasion to sin. Yet shall he swallow these little brass amulets of his, at the rate of one a day, and then be banished from the country.”
The sentence was executed, and Fu-su was happy that the Court physician condescended to accept his little property in exchange for emetics.
He begged his way slowly and painfully back to China, and arrived at the covenanted spot at the expiration of the thirtieth year. His father’s modest dwelling had disappeared, and in its place stood a magnificent mansion, around which stretched a park with pavilions, canals, willow-trees, golden pheasants, and little bridges.
“Tu-sin has surely made his fortune,” thought he, “and he will not refuse to share it with me agreeably to our covenant.”
As he thus reflected he heard a voice at his elbow, and turning round perceived that one in a more wretched plight than himself was asking alms of him. It was Tu-sin.
The brothers embraced with many tears, and after Tu-sin had learned Fu-su’s history, he proceeded to recount his own.
“I repaired,” said he, “to those who know the secret of the grains termed fire-dust, which Suen has not been able to prevent us from inventing, but of which Wu-chi has taken care that we shall make no use, save only for fireworks. Having learned their mystery I deposited a certain portion of this fire-dust in hollow tubes which I had constructed of iron and brass, and upon it I further laid leaden balls of a size corresponding to the hollow of the tubes. I then found that by applying a light to the fire-dust at one end of the tube I could send the ball out at the other with such force that it penetrated the cuirasses of three warriors at once. I filled a barrel with the dust, and concealing it and the tubes under carpets which I laid upon the backs of oxen, I set out to the city of Constantinople. I will not at present relate my adventures on the journey. Suffice it that I arrived at last half dead from fatigue and hardship, and destitute of everything except my merchandise. By bribing an officer with my carpets I was admitted to have speech with the Emperor. I found him busily studying a problem in chess.
“I told him that I had discovered a secret which would make him the master of the world, and in particular would help him to drive away the Saracens, who threatened his empire with destruction.
“‘Thou must perceive,’ he said, ‘that I cannot possibly attend to thee until I have solved this problem. Yet, lest any should say that the Emperor neglects his duties, absorbed in idle amusement, I will refer thy invention to the chief armourers of my capital. And he gave me a letter to the armourers, and returned to his problem. And as I quitted the palace bearing the missive, I came upon a great procession. Horsemen and running footmen, musicians, heralds, and banner-bearers surrounded a Chinaman who sat in the attitude of Fo under a golden umbrella upon a richly caparisoned elephant, his pigtail plaited with yellow roses. And the musicians blew and clashed, and the standard-bearers waved their ensigns, and the heralds proclaimed, ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the Emperor delights to honour.’ And unless I was very greatly mistaken, the face of the Chinaman was the face of our brother Wang-li.
“At another time I would have striven to find what this might mean, but my impatience was great, as also my need and hunger. I sought the chief armourers, and with great trouble brought them all together to give me audience, I produced my tube and fire-dust, and sent my balls with ease through the best armour they could set before me.
“‘Who will want breast-plates now?’ cried the chief breast-plate maker.
“‘Or helmets?’ exclaimed one who made armour for the head.
“‘I would not have taken fifty bezants for that shield, and what good is it now?’ said the head of the shield trade.
“‘My swords will be of less account,’ said a swordsmith.
“‘My arrows of none,’ lamented an arrow-maker.
“‘’Tis villainy,’ cried one.
“‘’Tis magic,’ shouted another.
“‘’Tis illusion, as I’m an honest tradesman,’ roared a third, and put his integrity to the proof by thrusting a hot iron bar into my barrel. All present rose up in company with the roof of the building, and all perished, except myself, who escaped with the loss of my hair and skin. A fire broke out on the spot, and consumed one-third of the city of Constantinople.
“I was lying on a prison-bed some time afterwards, partly recovered of my hurts, dolefully listening to a dispute between two of my guards as to whether I ought to be burned or buried alive, when the Imperial order for my disposal came down. The gaolers received it with humility, and read ‘Kick him out of the city.’ Marvelling at the mildness of the punishment, they nevertheless executed it with so much zeal that I flew into the middle of the Bosphorus, where I was picked up by a fishing vessel, and landed on the Asiatic coast, whence I have begged my way home. I now propose that we appeal to the pity of the owner of this splendid mansion, who may compassionate us on hearing that we were reared in the Cottage which has been pulled down to make room for his palace.”
They entered the gates, walked timidly up to the house, and prepared to fall at the feet of the master, but did not, for ere they could do so they recognised their brother Wang-li.
It took Wang-li some time to recognise them, but when at length he knew them he hastened to provide for their every want. When they had well eaten and drunk, and had been clad in robes of honour, they imparted their histories, and asked for his.
“My brothers,” said Wang-li, “the noble game of chess, which was happily invented long before the time of the Emperor Suen, was followed by me solely for its pleasure, and I dreamed not of acquiring wealth by its pursuit until I casually heard one day that it was entirely unknown to the people of the West. Even then I thought not of gaining money, but conceived so deep a compassion for those forlorn barbarians that I felt I could know no rest until I should have enlightened them. I accordingly proceeded to the city of Constantinople, and was received as a messenger from Heaven. To such effect did I labour that ere long the Emperor and his officers of state thought of nothing else but playing chess all day and night, and the empire fell into entire confusion, and the Saracens mightily prevailed. In consideration of these services the Emperor was pleased to bestow those distinguished honours upon me which thou didst witness at his palace gate, dear brother.
“After, however, the fire which was occasioned through thy instrumentality, though in no respect by thy fault, the people murmured, and taxed the Emperor with seeking to destroy his capital in league with a foreign sorcerer, meaning thee. Ere long the chief officers conspired and entered the Emperor’s apartment, purposing to dethrone him, but he declared that he would in nowise abdicate until he had finished the game of chess he was then playing with me. They looked on, grew interested, began to dispute with one another respecting the moves, and while they wrangled loyal officers entered and made them all captive. This greatly augmented my credit with the Emperor, which was even increased when shortly afterwards I played with the Saracen admiral blockading the Hellespont, and won of him forty corn-ships, which turned the dearth of the city into plenty.
“The Emperor bade me choose any favour I would, but I said his liberality had left me nothing to ask for except the life of a poor countryman of mine who I had heard was in prison for burning the city. The Emperor bade me write his sentence with my own hand. Had I known that it was thou, Tu-sin, believe me I had shown more consideration for thy person. At length I departed for my native land, loaded with wealth, and travelling most comfortably by relays of swift dromedaries. I returned hither, bought our father’s cottage, and on its site erected this palace, where I dwell meditating on the problems of chessplayers and the precepts of the sages, and persuaded that a little thing which the world is willing to receive is better than a great thing which it hath not yet learned to value aright. For the world is a big child, and chooses amusement before instruction.”
“Call you chess an amusement?” asked his brothers.
MADAM LUCIFER
Lucifer sat playing chess with Man for his soul.
The game was evidently going ill for Man. He had but pawns left, few and straggling. Lucifer had rooks, knights, and, of course, bishops.
It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no great hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient.
“It is a pity,” said he at last, “that we did not fix some period within which the player must move, or resign.”
“Oh, Lucifer,” returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, “it is not the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that paragon of terrestrial loveliness!” Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was touched.
“Is the Lady Adeliza’s loveliness in sooth so transcendent?” he inquired.
“She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!”
“If that is the case,” rejoined Lucifer, “thou mayest reassure thyself. The Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy shape and woo her in thy stead.”
The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this promise which Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In an instant the Devil checkmated him, and he disappeared.
“Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I don’t think I should have gone in for it,” soliloquised the Devil, as, wearing his captive’s semblance and installed in his apartments, he surveyed the effects to which he now had to administer. They included coats, shirts, collars, neckties, foils, cigars, and the like ad libitum; and very little else except three challenges, ten writs, and seventy-four unpaid bills, elegantly disposed around the looking-glass. To the poor youth’s praise be it said, there were no billets-doux, except from the Lady Adeliza herself.
Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and nothing but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him take the back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking on the principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer and a bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady Adeliza’s feet.
The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such correctness of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a love-sick fiend. Not Merlin’s mother had produced half the impression upon him; and Adeliza on her part had never found her lover one-hundredth part so interesting as he seemed that morning.
Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape for the occasion, he negotiated a loan without the smallest difficulty. All debts were promptly discharged, and Adeliza was astonished at the splendour and variety of the presents she was constantly receiving.
Lucifer had all but brought her to name the day, when he was informed that a gentleman of clerical appearance desired to wait upon him.
“Wants money for a new church or mission, I suppose,” said he. “Show him up.”
But when the visitor was ushered in, Lucifer found with discomposure that he was no earthly clergyman, but a celestial saint; a saint, too, with whom Lucifer had never been able to get on. He had served in the army while on earth, and his address was curt, precise, and peremptory.
“I have called,” he said, “to notify to you my appointment as Inspector of Devils.”
“What!” exclaimed Lucifer, in consternation. “To the post of my old friend Michael!”
“Too old,” said the Saint laconically. “Millions of years older than the world. About your age, I think?”
Lucifer winced, remembering the particular business he was then about. The Saint continued:
“I am a new broom, and am expected to sweep clean. I warn you that I mean to be strict, and there is one little matter which I must set right immediately. You are going to marry that poor young fellow’s betrothed, are you? Now you know you cannot take his wife, unless you give him yours.”
“Oh, my dear friend,” exclaimed Lucifer, “what an inexpressibly blissful prospect you do open unto me!”
“I don’t know that,” said the Saint. “I must remind you that the dominion of the infernal regions is unalterably attached to the person of the present Queen thereof. If you part with her you immediately lose all your authority and possessions. I don’t care a brass button which you do, but you must understand that you cannot eat your cake and have it too. Good morning!”
Who shall describe the conflict in Lucifer’s bosom? If any stronger passion existed therein at that moment than attachment to Adeliza, it was aversion to his consort, and the two combined were well-nigh irresistible. But to disenthrone himself, to descend to the condition of a poor devil!
Feeling himself incapable of coming to a decision, he sent for Belial, unfolded the matter, and requested his advice.
“What a shame that our new inspector will not let you marry Adeliza!” lamented his counsellor. “If you did, my private opinion is that forty-eight hours afterwards you would care just as much for her as you do now for Madam Lucifer, neither more nor less. Are your intentions really honourable?”
“Yes,” replied Lucifer, “it is to be a Lucifer match.”
“The more fool you,” rejoined Belial. “If you tempted her to commit a sin, she would be yours without any conditions at all.”
“Oh, Belial,” said Lucifer, “I cannot bring myself to be a tempter of so much innocence and loveliness.”
And he meant what he said.
“Well then, let me try,” proposed Belial.
“You?” replied Lucifer contemptuously; “do you imagine that Adeliza would look at you?”
“Why not?” asked Belial, surveying himself complacently in the glass.
He was humpbacked, squinting, and lame, and his horns stood up under his wig.
The discussion ended in a wager after which there was no retreat for Lucifer.
The infernal Iachimo was introduced to Adeliza as a distinguished foreigner, and was soon prosecuting his suit with all the success which Lucifer had predicted. One thing protected while it baffled him—the entire inability of Adeliza to understand what he meant. At length he was constrained to make the matter clear by producing an enormous treasure, which he offered Adeliza in exchange for the abandonment of her lover.
The tempest of indignation which ensued would have swept away any ordinary demon, but Belial listened unmoved. When Adeliza had exhausted herself he smilingly rallied her upon her affection for an unworthy lover, of whose infidelity he undertook to give her proof. Frantic with jealousy, Adeliza consented, and in a trice found herself in the infernal regions.
Adeliza’s arrival in Pandemonium, as Belial had planned, occurred immediately after the receipt of a message from Lucifer, in whose bosom love had finally gained the victory, and who had telegraphed his abdication and resignation of Madam Lucifer to Adeliza’s betrothed. The poor young man had just been hauled up from the lower depths, and was beset by legions of demons obsequiously pressing all manner of treasures upon his acceptance. He stared, helpless and bewildered, unable to realise his position in the smallest degree. In the background grave and serious demons, the princes of the infernal realm, discussed the new departure, and consulted especially how to break it to Madam Lucifer—a commission of which no one seemed ambitious.
“Stay where you are,” whispered Belial to Adeliza; “stir not; you shall put his constancy to the proof within five minutes.”
Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under ordinary circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover’s side: but what is all hell to jealousy?
In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by Madam Lucifer. This lady’s black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted agreeably with her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair was compensated by the exceptional length of her nails; she was a thousand million years old, and, but for her remarkable muscular vigour, looked every one of them. The rage into which Belial’s communication had thrown her was something indescribable; but, as her eye fell on the handsome youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to take possession of her mind.
“Let the monster go!” she exclaimed; “who cares? Come, my love, ascend the throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond Luciferetta.”
“If you don’t, back you go,” interjected Belial.
What might have been the young man’s decision if Madam Lucifer had borne more resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent to inquire, for the question never arose.
“Take me away!” he screamed, “take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of her reach! Oh, Adeliza!”
With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant glance at the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression changed, and she screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike in every lineament and every detail of costume, utterly indistinguishable, even by the eye of Love.
Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza’s feet and pray her to defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings of her elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his dominions along with his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions with such expedition that he had had no time to change his costume. Hence the equivocation which confounded Adeliza, but at the same time preserved her from being torn to pieces by the no less mystified Madam Lucifer.
Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling resumed his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer’s talons were immediately inserted into his whiskers.
“My dear! my love!” he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, “is this the way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?”
“Who is that person?” demanded Madam Lucifer.
“I don’t know her,” screamed the wretched Lucifer. “I never saw her before. Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!”
“Not if I know it,” sharply replied Madam Lucifer, “You can’t bear to part with her, can’t you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, would you? Take that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them both out!”
“Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly,” responded Lucifer.
“Oh, Sire,” cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, “for Heaven’s sake let your Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector——”
“Bother the Inspector!” screeched Lucifer. “D’ye think I’m not a thousand times more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in the calendar? There,” addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, “be off! You’ll find all debts paid, and a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!”
They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus stood wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down which they scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it was long ere they ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer.
THE TALISMANS
What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us perform, which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem incredible!
By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, who was prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of which, to judge by the little value he appeared to set on the subject of his discourse, he must himself have been fully persuaded? Without exciting his suspicions in the smallest degree, the student stole away to a region inconceivably remote, and presented himself at the portal of a magnificent palace, guarded by goblins, imps, lions, serpents, and monsters whose uncouthness forbids description.
A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the professor’s class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance, brandishing a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal goblins, by whom he was successively interrogated.
“Hast thou undergone the seven probations?”
“Yes,” said the student.
“Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?”
“Ninety-nine times each,” said the student.
“Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?”
“I have,” said the student.
“Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?”
“I am,” said the student.
“Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?”
“Of course,” said the student,
“Hast thou attestations of all these circumstances under the hands and seals of a thousand and one demons?”
The student displayed his parchments.
“Thou hast undergone every trial,” pronounced the seventh goblin; “thou hast won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all things, and to choose from it any one talisman at thy liking.”
The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank hissing away, the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him upon his back to the treasurer’s presence,
The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair, received the adventurer with civility.
“I have come,” said the student, “for the talismans in thy keeping, to the choice among which I have entitled myself.”
“Thou hast fairly earned them,” replied the old man, “and I may not say thee nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape which it has received at my hands during the long period for which these have remained in my custody.”
“I must submit to the condition,” said the student.
“Behold, then, Aladdin’s lamp,” said the ancient personage, tendering a tiny vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a coarse, rusty powder.
“Aladdin’s lamp!” cried the student.
“All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve,” replied the old man. “Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to apprise thee that the virtues of the talisman having necessarily dwindled with its bulk, it is at present incompetent to evoke any Genie, and can at most summon an imp, of whose company thou wilt never be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as the least friction will inevitably destroy what little of the talisman remains.”
“Confusion!” cried the young man, “Show me, then, Aladdin’s ring.”
“Here,” replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop,
“This, at least,” asked the student, “is not devoid of virtue?”
“Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its magic properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, which I have gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any other use than that of a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to admiration.”
“Produce another talisman,” commanded the youth,
“These,” said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of leather, “are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them out.”
“This, at least, is bright and weighty,” exclaimed the student, as the old man displayed the sword of sharpness.
“In truth a doughty weapon,” returned the treasurer, “if wielded by a stronger arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite off heads of its own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to the new hilt.”
After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a fragment of the original setting of Solomon’s seal, the youth’s eye lighted upon a volume full of mysterious characters.
“Whose book is this?” he inquired. “Heavens, it is Michael Scott’s!”
“Even so,” returned the venerable man, “and its spells have lost nothing of their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula for dismissing spirits after they have been summoned from the nether world, hath been removed by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath caused several most respectable magicians to be torn in pieces, and hath notably increased the number of demons at large.”
“Thou old villain!” shouted the exasperated youth, “is this the way in which the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou that I will brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, but I will deprive thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair.”
“O good youth,” supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, “bereave me not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the consequences!”
“I will not think,” roared the youth. “Deliver it to me, or I’ll rend it from thy head with my own hands.”
With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to the youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters.
Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding streets until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large public square. It was crowded with people, gazing intently at the afternoon sky, and the air was rife with a confused murmur of altercations and exclamations.
“It is.” “No, I tell you, it is impossible.” “It cannot be.” “I see it move.” “No, it’s only my eyes are dazzled.” “Who could have believed it?” “Whatever will happen next?”
Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object of their attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could discover nothing unusual.
“No,” a man by him was saying, “it positively has not moved for an hour. I have my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken.”
“It ought to have been behind the houses long ago,” said another.
“What’s o’clock?” asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes towards the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a single tick, but there was none to hear.
“Time is no more,” proclaimed a leader among the people.
“I am a ruined man,” lamented a watchmaker.
“And I,” ejaculated a maker of almanacks.
“What of quarter-day?” inquired a landlord and a tenant simultaneously.
“We shall never see the moon again,” sobbed a pair of lovers.
“It is well this did not happen at night,” observed an optimist.
“Indeed?” questioned the director of a gas company.
“I told you the Last Day would come in our time,” said a preacher.
It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time had paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation depending on her silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not come to life. The sick could not die. The human frame could not waste. Every one in the enjoyment of health and strength felt assured of the perpetual possession of these blessings, unless he should meet with accident or violent death. But all growth ceased, and all dissolution was stayed. Mothers looked with despair on infants who could never be weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs gazed with dismay on immortal fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties, the fashionable boxers and opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor did the intellectual less rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired faculties, and vowing to extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The poor and the outcast, the sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the dying made, indeed, a dismal outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by some persons.
As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to a young lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been attached in former days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that it would be everlasting, revived his passion. To convince her of the perpetuity of her charms, and establish a claim upon her gratitude, he cautiously revealed to her that he was the author of this blissful state of things, and that Time’s hair was actually in his possession.
“Oh, you dear good man!” she exclaimed, “how vastly I am obliged to you! Ferdinand will never forsake me now.”
“Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for me.”
“Oh!” she said, “you young men of science are so conceited!”
The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer’s palace. It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the city ere he mixed again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was addressing energetically.
“I ask you one thing,” he was saying. “Will it ever rain again?”
“Certainly not,” replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. “Rain being an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be no place for it under the present dispensation.”
“Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they not withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea itself? Who will feed your cattle? And who will feed you?”
“This concerns us,” said the butchers and bakers.
“Us also,” added the fishmongers.
“I always thought,” said a philosopher, “that this phenomenon must be the work of some malignant wizard.”
“Show us the wizard that we may slay him,” roared the mob.
Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately identified by twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and was held up in sight of the multitude.
“Kill him!”
“Burn him!”
“Crucify him!”
“It moves! it moves!” cried another division of the crowd. All eyes were bent on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving—no, it wasn’t; yes, it certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows were actually lengthening? Was the sun’s rim really drawing nigh yonder great edifice? That muffled sound from the vast, silent multitude was, doubtless, the quick beating of innumerable hearts; but that sharper note? Could it be the ticking of watches? Suddenly all the public clocks clanged the first stroke of an hour—an absurdly wrong hour, but it was an hour. No mortal heard the second stroke, drowned in universal shouts of joy and gratitude. The student mingled with the mass, no man regarding him.
When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could get beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a very humble citizen, a barber.
“Why,” he said, “the old gentleman’s hair has grown again!”
And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying gave up the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told the professor his dream.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of Balkh, where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the occult sciences. No one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet Aboniel did not wholly shun intercourse with mankind, but, on the contrary, had seven pupils, towardly youths belonging to the noblest families of the city, whom he instructed at stated times in philosophy and all lawful knowledge, reserving the forbidden lore of magic and alchemy for himself.
But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing save the sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven crystal phials, filled with a clear liquid resembling water.
“Ye know, my sons,” he began, “with what ardour I am reputed to have striven to penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the problems which have allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this rumour doth not err: such hath ever been my object; but, until yesterday, my fortune hath been like unto theirs who have preceded me. The little I could accomplish seemed as nothing in comparison with what I was compelled to leave unachieved. Even now my success is but partial. I have not learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is not mine; nor can I recall the principle of life to the dead, or infuse it into inanimate matter. But if I cannot create, I can preserve. I have found the Elixir of Life.”
The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them he read extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their teacher, and the dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves might become participators in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. Addressing himself to the latter sentiment—“I am willing,” he continued, “to communicate this secret to you, if such be your desire.”
An unanimous exclamation assured him that there need be no uncertainty on this point.
“But remember,” he resumed, “that this knowledge, like all knowledge, has its disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when ye come to learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. Understand that the stipulations I am about to propound are not of my imposing; the secret was imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent order, and under conditions with which I am constrained strictly to comply. Understand also that I am not minded to employ this knowledge on my own behalf. My fourscore years’ acquaintance with life has rendered me more solicitous for methods of abbreviating existence, than of prolonging it. It may be well for you if your twenty years’ experience has led you to the same conclusion.”
There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, and indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of their venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have convinced him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf between theory and practice, and the feebleness of intellectual persuasion in presence of innate instinct. With one voice they protested their readiness to brave any conceivable peril, and undergo any test which might be imposed as a condition of participation in their master’s marvellous secret.
“So be it,” returned the sage, “and now hearken to the conditions.
“Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these seven phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far different are the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly poisons which the utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to prepare, and science knows no antidote to any of them. The first scorches up the entrails as with fire; the second slays by freezing every vein, and benumbing every nerve; the third by frantic convulsions. Happy in comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks dead upon the ground immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. Nor do I overmuch commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for slumber descends upon him forthwith, and he passes away in painless oblivion. But wretched he who chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from his head, whose skin peels from his body, and who lingers long in excruciating agonies, a living death. The seventh phial contains the object of your desire. Stretch forth your hands, therefore, simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly grasp and intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the quality of his fortune attested by the result.”
The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they scanned the phials, trusting that some infinitesimal distinction might serve to discriminate the elixir from the poisons. But no, the vessels were indistinguishable in external appearance, and the contents of each were equally colourless and transparent.
“Well,” demanded Aboniel at length, with real or assumed surprise, “wherefore tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you in the agonies of death!”
This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but perceiving that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some confusion.
“Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this worthless existence,” said one of their number at last, breaking the embarrassing silence, “but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound up with mine.”
“I,” said the second, “have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet that I should provide.”
“I,” said the third, “have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose cause I may in nowise forsake.”
“And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged,” said the fourth.
“My life,” said the fifth, “is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent to lay it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?”
“Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?” inquired the sixth.
“I,” said the seventh, “have neither mother nor sister, friends nor enemies, neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But I have all the greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is exceedingly precious in my sight.”
“The conclusion of the whole matter, then,” summed up the sage, “is that not one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?”
The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the justice of their master’s taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for some middle path, which did not readily present itself.
“May we not,” said one at last, “may we not cast lots, and each take a phial in succession, as destiny may appoint?”
“I have nothing against this,” replied Aboniel, “only remember that the least endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of any one of you, will ensure the discomfiture of all.”
The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and proceeded to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in the hand of the holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his mother.
He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced half the distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of the second quill; the man with the sister, he said abruptly:
“The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and intimate than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not therefore fitting that thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my stead?”
“The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son,” responded the youth addressed, in a sententious tone, “albeit most holy, cannot in the nature of things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be dissolved by death. Whereas the relationship between brother and sister may endure for many years, if such be the will of Allah. It is therefore proper that thou shouldst first venture the experiment.”
“Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!” exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. “The maternal relationship—”
“A truce to this trifling,” cried the other six; “fulfil the conditions, or abandon the task.”
Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized one of the phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied that he detected something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which distinguished it, in his imagination, from the innocent transparency of the rest. He hastily replaced it, and laid hold of the next. At that moment a blaze of light burst forth upon them, and, thunderstruck, the seven scholars were stretched senseless on the ground.
On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of Aboniel’s dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part they had played. They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned to their homes.
The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be expected to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven days, known to more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The last of these to become acquainted with it was the Sultan, who immediately despatched his guards to apprehend the sage, and confiscate the Elixir. Failing to obtain admission at Aboniel’s portal, they broke it open, and, on entering his chamber, found him in a condition which more eloquently than any profession bespoke his disdain for the life-bestowing draught. He was dead in his chair. Before him, on the table, stood the seven phials, six full as previously, the seventh empty. In his hand was a scroll inscribed as follows;
“Six times twice six years have I striven after knowledge, and I now bequeath to the world the fruit of my toil, being six poisons. One more deadly I might have added, but I have refrained,
“Write upon my tomb, that here he lies who forbore to perpetuate human affliction, and bestowed a fatal boon where alone it could be innoxious.”
The intruders looked at each other, striving to penetrate the sense of Aboniel’s last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an inspiration of supreme irony, had administered to the creature every drop of the Elixir of Life.