CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ANGELS OF LIFE AND DEATH.
He said no more,
For at that instant flashed the glare,
And with a hoarse, infernal roar,
A blaze went up and filled the air!
Rafters, and stones, and bodies rose
In one quick gush of blinding flame,
And down, and down, amidst the dark,
Hurling on every side they came.
AYTOUN.
Deep down in the rock upon which Nottingham Castle proudly stands, there winds a passage which was used in the centuries long gone by as the readiest way of bringing the victuals in the castle, and which has long been commonly accepted as the veritable "Mortimer's Hole."
A man was busily engaged in arduous toil in one of the cavities hollowed out in the very heart of the rock. It was the chamber in which the dissolute Mortimer and the faithless Isabella had been captured by the youthful monarch, Edward III., two centuries and a half earlier, but no traces of its former grandeur—if it ever possessed any—now remained. It was changed into the abode of an alchemyst, and as Edmund Wynne ever and anon tapped an iron vessel his eyes sparkled with delight.
The room was full of fumes and smoke. Phials of many shapes and various sizes were ranged around on every side, filled with liquids of every imaginable odour and hue. A long rude bench, which ran along the farther side of the room, was crowded with boxes of crystals, crucibles, and bottles, and, to complete the scene, a log fire was smouldering away on the centre of the solid rock floor.
Edmund had long sought the elixir of life, but it had proved as delusive as a will-o'-the-wisp to him, and ever, just as he felt assured of success, the prize had slipped away from his grasp, leaving him further away from success than he had been before. But now it was not the elixir that he was seeking to find. From trying to discover something that should rob the grave of its prey, he had turned his attention towards the invention of an engine to hasten death. His heart was all aflame with the passion of revenge. The lord of Haddon had incurred his intense and undying hatred. He had heaped indignities upon him; he had slain the object of his affections; and the disgrace into which he had fallen at London was also ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to the baron.
Baulked of his revenge hitherto, his passionate desire for it had decreased rather than declined through his failures, and the very fact of his failing was itself another charge for which the baron would have to answer. Death, and death alone, would now be sufficient to wipe out the stain, and Edmund had long cudgelled his wits to secure the destruction of his foe.
"Aye, Edmund, Edmund," exclaimed Sir Ronald Bury, as he broke in upon
Wynne's privacy, "at thy whimsical labours again, I see."
"Nay, not whimsical, Ronald," was the gentle reply. "My elixir is nearly right; only one ingredient more is wanted, and then!"
"And then, what?" laughed the knight.
"Why, then I shall have discovered what all the sages of the earth have sought in vain."
"A toadstone, I suppose?" replied Sir Ronald, lightly.
"Ha, you may laugh, Ronald," said the astrologer, severely. "Fools ever did mock the wise, like the rich despise the poor. You are but a soldier, and I am a man of science—the great alchemyst! My name shall live; yea, mark me, Ronald, it will be known and revered in time to come, aye, even when this castle has crumbled into dust, and when the name of Roger Bacon has been long forgotten."
"Well, Edmund," responded the knight, gaily, "let us hope so; only one more substance, eh?"
"Only one," the enthusiast replied, while the look of triumph flashed already from his eyes.
"And then we shall—shall what, Edmund, what shall we do?"
"Live for ages."
"For ever, in fact, I suppose?"
"My elixir will conquer disease, and man shall live until his feeble frame has worn away," he responded grandly.
"Lucky man," soliloquised Sir Ronald, facetiously. "But the dames,
Edmund, you said naught of them. Cannot you discover aught for them?
Surely they may share the blessing also!"
"No more is wanted; my elixir will serve for both," majestically responded Edmund, as he placed a cauldron over the fire. He was too intensely in earnest himself to note that his companion was sceptically making fun of him.
"And will soldiers live for ages, too?" continued Sir Ronald.
"Those who are killed my elixir is impotent to bring back again to life. The dead are beyond all aid."
"And the wounded?" persisted the knight.
"I can but stave off disease, Ronald; but what a glorious achievement have I accomplished then! Methinks I see the glory now, and when I am in my grave, pilgrims shall come and worship at my shrine as they have done these centuries at the altar of St. Thomas the Martyr at Canterbury. What glory, what glory!" and in the exuberance of his delight, Edmund Wynne gleefully rubbed his hands together.
"I am forgetting my errand, though," exclaimed the deputy-governor, "I have a visitor for thee."
Edmund quailed. He was not in the habit of receiving visitors, for he had few friends and many enemies, therefore the announcement gave him very little pleasure.
"For me?" he said, in a tone of unmistakable surprise, and equally unmistakable displeasure.
"Aye, for thee," Sir Ronald replied. "Shall I bring him to you?"
"Bring him down here?" screamed Edmund, aghast at the very idea. "No, never."
"You will come up to him, then? It makes no matter!"
"I am too busy," he evasively replied. "Tell me, Ronald, who it is."
"'Tis a friend."
"Humph! He has heard of my elixir and wants—ah, well, I shall have friends enough now, I'll warrant me."
"He is an enemy of Sir George Vernon, then," added the knight.
"Hey! Bring him down, then," said the alchemyst. "I will meet him outside the room."
"Well, Master John Manners will be down by and bye. Lady Bury meanwhile is entertaining him, for he was hungry."
Edmund started.
"Manners, John Manners!" he exclaimed. "Nay, then, bring him not hither. Does he know that I am here?"
"Aye, I have told him."
"You have!" ejaculated Edmund, in a frenzy of terror. "I met him at
Haddon, he is a friend of the baron's."
"He was," replied his friend; "but things have changed, and now he is like to invoke thy aid. He will help us to have our revenge, maybe, for I have been persuading him; he is very bitter now against the Vernons, and will make thee a good accomplice."
"Revenge," murmured Edmund, "ha! revenge is sweet. The baron shall be punished; my machine—"
"Never mind the machine now," broke in Sir Ronald, who was by no means anxious to listen to the well-worn rigmarole again. "You can show that to him, and tell him all about it. I shall bring him down, for he knows not the way."
"Well, I will yield to thee; do as you list," he replied, and the man of science turned his back abruptly upon his friend, and vigorously stirred the seething liquid which was beginning to boil over upon the fire.
In a few minutes Manners appeared, but Sir Ronald Bury had brought him purposely with so little noise that the alchemyst was not aware of his presence, and for a long time they stood in the doorway, and watched his movements.
He was talking to himself, as he often did. It was a habit into which he had unconsciously fallen. He had persuaded himself to think that the great posterity for which he laboured so hard could hear him, and in his isolation the reflection was a great consolation to him.
"Ha, ha," he muttered, "thou hast had thy little day, Sir George Vernon. 'King of the Peak,' indeed—thy reign is o'er. And Margaret, proud Margaret, and the haughty Lady Maude, aha! You shall all tremble at my name."
"Hist, move thee not," whispered Sir Ronald, "he is, about to test his engine again; it blows off sparks of fire as if it were the smithy's forge, but without the noise. I have seen him perform with it often. Hark."
Edmund had brought out his engine from a deep recess in the wall, and a rough, unsightly piece of mechanism it was. It was intended to be square, but constant testings and trials had caused it to assume more the appearance of an octagon, and as the sides had thus bulged out, the bands which had held the instrument together became loosened and untrustworthy.
Edmund surveyed it affectionately. It was the offspring of his genius, and he blindly disregarded all its little imperfections amid the great love he bore towards it.
"Aha," he murmured, "thou art done, thou art ready now. Thou art an angel of death, and thou"—turning to his elixir—"thou art an angel of life."
"Mix them up, Nathan, mix them up," gaily exclaimed Manners as he stepped into the room. "We will give the Vernons a dose."
Edmund was startled, and he hastily retreated to his engine to protect it.
"Avaunt!" he cried, "touch it not."
"Nay, I want not to injure it," returned the other, whose smile contrasted with the alchemyst's scowl. "Shake hands, man; I will do thee no harm."
"Beware," cried Edmund, distrustfully, as he covered over the angel.
"Beware!"
"Edmund, thou speakest over rashly," interposed Sir Ronald. "Master Manners would honour thee, and thou treatest him so lightly. Together you may accomplish your designs and work whatever you will; the past—"
"Is buried with its forefathers and forgotten," quickly exclaimed
Manners. "Come, I greet thee on equal terms. I would be thy friend."
Edmund shook the proffered hand as though it were a bar of red-hot iron he had been commanded to hold, or a phial of his precious elixir he was carrying, and he felt by no means flattered at the reference to their equality, just as if he, too, had discovered such mighty secrets.
"I shall not want for friends soon, forsooth; the great have ever many," he replied.
Manners laughed.
"Thou hast few enough as yet, I'll warrant, besides thy good friend, Sir Ronald," he exclaimed. "I trow you cannot well afford to turn the first comers away, Nathan."
"I can do all with my elixir," was the proud response.
"Sir Ronald Bury tells me thou hast prepared this engine for Sir George," said Manners, abruptly changing the topic of the conversation. "Is that so?"
"Aha, for Sir George Vernon, yes."
"Can'st thou direct it against the Stanleys, too? I would have them punished if we could."
"Thou art a friend of his," said Edmund, suspiciously, referring to the baron.
"Albeit I seek revenge, justice, anything!" he said bitterly. "I have been spurned away from his door like as I had been a dog."
Edmund looked at him incredulously. He was not convinced yet.
"If you mean no treachery," he said cautiously, "call me by my name, for I am Edmund Wynne. I like not to bethink me of the past until—," and he approvingly looked at his instrument of death.
"Until what?"
"Ha, I will show thee," replied Edmund. "Stand not too near."
Manners had not much faith in the destructive properties of the instrument, but the command was given in such an earnest and authoritative fashion that to have refused compliance would only have caused offence. Probably, too, Edmund would not try the experiment if he expressed his scepticism, and he was curious to see it, so he retreated to the doorway to watch his movements.
"This," Edmund went on, "is to be put in the baron's room."
"Yes, but how?" asked Manners, perceiving that some sort of a remark was expected of him.
"Cannot I, who have invented it, find some means for conveying the engine there?" replied the inventor, with staggering emphasis.
Manners deferentially bowed his acquiescence, much to the amusement of
Sir Ronald.
"You must not heed his words," whispered the knight. "He is infatuated with his work. In all things else he is as timid as a mouse."
"And then," pursued the mighty alchemyst, "and then—! Nay, I will show thee, see!" and with some difficulty he forced open a little door at the side.
Both Manners and Sir Ronald moved forward to examine it, for the room was but faintly lighted and they could barely see the dim outline of the instrument.
"Go back, go back," screamed Edmund. "Ronald, I look for no treachery from thee."
"Tush," contemptuously replied the knight, as he poured some more oil into the lamp, "get on. We did but want to see."
"This," continued Edmund, unabashed, "is more dreadful than Roger Bacon's powder;" and pulling out a short, stout iron canister, he poured some crystals into a hole. "Look and behold," he added. "I invoke no saints, nor do I seek the aid of any deity, but see;" and rolling some of the crystals tightly up in some parchment, he dropped it into the midst of the fire.
For a few moments nothing was seen or heard of it, and the onlookers were smiling to each other when the wonderful crystals began to splutter and fizz, till the packet suddenly exploded with a loud report, rattling the bottles and jars together, while the rumbling report rolled up the long subterranean passage.
"Ha!" exclaimed Edmund, triumphantly. "You shudder at the sight; that is nothing, I can do infinitely more than that. I will do it with more crystals now."
"Nay, we are convinced of thy prowess; when the fumes have cleared away, show us this engine," replied Manners. "It is full of wheels; show us their purpose."
"That shook this chamber," Edmund replied, "but this could well nigh shatter it."
"Great man, we acknowledge thy mighty genius," responded Sir Ronald.
"Reveal the limit of thy powers."
"I will," said Edmund, enthusiastically, "I will."
All his reserve was worn off now, and he expatiated at length upon the wonderful powers of his mighty engine. No such power had been known before; nothing would stand against it; it was indeed a miracle of force.
"But, prithee," asked Manners, heartily sick of the ceaseless explanations, and anxious to see the practical outcome of it all, "how worketh it? Show us, let it move this piece of rock."
"You doubt me; I will show it thee; I will test it but this once again, and then the baron, curse him! dies."
Edmund busied himself for some time in compounding some evil-smelling ingredients in a huge mortar, and, as he stirred the pestle round and round, the contents hissed and crackled, and emitted sparks of fire. At length, after many bottles had been partially emptied, and many powders and the like had been employed, the mysterious substance was obtained, and he sprinkled a little of it upon the red embers, when a series of miniature explosions followed.
"Look, see!" he passionately exclaimed, "I have discovered something still more powerful; nay, stand back. I found it once before, but lost the art. Now we shall see; hey, hey."
Slowly and cautiously the canister was replaced; the requisite powder was carefully measured and inserted, and after many an examination had been made, Edmund declared that everything was in readiness for the wheels to be set in motion.
"Stand back, venture not too near," he commanded, and placing a heavy piece of loose rock upon the case, he set the wheels in motion and stepped back proudly behind his handiwork.
"Thou shalt be convinced shortly, Master Manners," he exclaimed. "Ha, ha, I shall have many friends soon. None know the power I have at my command, and princes and queens will court me to possess it. I can either kill or keep alive, my elixir—"
His voice was lost in the din of a great explosion. Bottles and jars were rattled together and smashed. The chamber was full of smoke and flame. Everything was suddenly thrown into frightful disorder, all was in confusion. Solid masses of rock were detached from the walls and roof, and went crashing across the room, destroying everything with which they came into contact, or else burst through the wall and bounded down the steep rock outside. The very room seemed to spin around, and Sir Ronald and Manners were thrown headlong upon the pavement of the passage outside.
What could it all mean?
Simply that the engine had done its work. Edmund had overcharged it, and it had exploded. The angel of death had slain its creator, and the wonderful elixir of life was lost to the world for ever.