‘It has never been lost; nevertheless I have but now found it. Ha, ha! Child, do you think I have taken leave of my wits? And, indeed, I think I have, for joy,’ laughed Masthlion, straining the girl to his breast and giving her a fervent kiss. ‘Go, bring your mother!’
Neæra glided away into the upper regions of the house on her mission; and, at the request of Masthlion, Cestus took a brand from the fire and lighted an iron lamp which hung from the ceiling. By the time the feeble flame threw its cheerless light upon the scene, Neæra returned with Tibia. The latter, with probably a hint of her husband’s unusual humour, came forward in a peculiar roundabout fashion, as though she were describing the segment of a circle with the potter as a centre. Her face, wreathed in wonder and some fear, was riveted on his, throughout her course, as if her head were magnetised. When she arrived finally on the opposite side of him, she stopped. Masthlion regarded her with an amused smile, and Cestus grinned, almost audibly. Neæra, standing at one side, [pg 269]glanced from one to the other, with a slight wrinkling of her brows, and drew a step nearer Tibia; but the dame remained absorbed in her husband, and indifferent to the amusement her odd manner had caused.
‘Husband!’ she ejaculated at last. ‘What is the matter?’
‘’Tis what I sent to tell you,’ he said, laughing. ‘Look!’ He seized her hand, and held up the vessel before her eyes in the same way he had done to the others. ‘Here is the result of twenty-five years’ toil and patience. Here, at last, is success, after disappointments and bitterness beyond my tongue to tell. Do you remember the old times, wife? Ay, can you ever forget them? They were too well ground into you—starvation and rags are not easily forgotten. I was the cause; and though you often blamed me and reproached me in your heart, you never murmured.’
Tibia shook her head gently.
‘Well, well, I deserved it, at least. I was a man possessed with an idea and no money—an unlucky combination for mortals who are obliged to eat to live. I learnt my trade as a youth, and one day in my master’s shop I chanced upon a piece of refuse glass of peculiar quality. I showed it to my master, but he scarcely looked at it. He was a man of no ideas beyond his daily work. There was that about this piece of glass, however, which set me thinking, and filled me with an idea of such strength as to be called infatuation. It has been like a stone of Sisyphus to me till this day, and now I have conquered it. For twenty-five years I have worked to discover the secret of that stray piece of glass, more or less madly—eagerly—according to circumstances, but always constantly. My father, when he died, left me a little hoard of money. Then I left my master and built a workshop of my own. It was then, too, I married my sweetheart; and like a young, eager, hot-blooded, thoughtless lad, would have laughed to scorn the notion of a space of twenty-five years being necessary to the working out of my problem, had it been told to me at that time. “Come,” I said to myself, “my money will keep us a couple of years, and by that time, I shall have found out my secret, and fortune will lie before me.” In two years I was as far off the end as ever—do you remember, Tibia? In three years I was further still, for we had struggled on, in vain [pg 270]hope that each day would solve the mystery, and my patrimony had come to an end in the process. Every experiment was as futile as the one before it, and I had become numb even to bitter disgust and despair. Ah, and how I worked! Night and day—it was like a fever dream. And you, Tibia, would come to help—it was your presence that helped more than your hands, wife. Then came the day when the last coin had been spent in fuel for the furnace, and the experiment had failed as miserably as all the others before it. It was dusk as I tested my work and found it wanting, and I sat down stupid and sick. I began to dream horribly, or else a fever had reached my brain. I sat there like a helpless log, as if bound hand and foot, whilst the walls seemed to dance around me in a giddy whirl, and the roof to rear up and swoop down upon me with a frightful sensation that will live in my memory till I die. Then in that dread hour it was you who crept in beside me. Yet you did nothing but lay your hand silently on mine, and that saved me. You remember it, Tibia?—I cried like a girl. I was overwrought in mind and body. I was like the steel blade which is strained in a curve beyond its strength, and then snaps, to spring and quiver no more. That night we begged our supper, and next morning I rose another being. I was a dreaming youth no longer, and I set to work to make pots like my dull master, and allow my phantasy to find its opportunities for indulgence, when time and means allowed. I did not do this from change of inclination, for my ambition burned as strongly as ever; but to live was a necessity. The gods gave me patience, and I toiled for livelihood, and for means to give me leisure to resume my search. The gods have blessed me in both: we are beyond fear of want, and I have, at last, discovered the secret which led me on, like a will-o’-the-wisp, for all these years. Here it is to bless us—me, for my toil, and you, wife, for your patience and long-suffering! I was cruel in those early years. Many a time since then have I acknowledged it. But I was possessed—eaten up too much with my own mad hopes and visions to be able to see a wife pinched and starved. Heaven knows, wife, what your thoughts were in those days! You never spoke, and I dare not ask. Now I may be able to repay—who [pg 271]knows? At least the secret is found, whatever it may lead to. If it was ever known to the world before I know not; but I have heard the scholars say, that the most ancient people, the Egyptians, in their days of power, were skilled in works beyond the comprehension of these days. Yet their knowledge is all buried, forgotten, lost, like their temples and cities. What they knew and discovered will have to be sought for again. Thus this matter of mine may once have been known well enough, when the world was ages younger, in the days of the giants. Let that be or not; it is of no consequence to me or any one. It is enough for me to think, that no one lives and breathes who saw, or ever heard, of such a glass cup as this which now I hold. What would you say, now, if it were impossible to break this vessel? What would the wealthy patrician think, if his costly glass treasure, goblet, or heirloom should be of such composition that his careless slaves should be powerless to harm it?—that the delicate fabric, exquisitely cut and designed, brilliantly pictured and tinted, instead of being dashed to fragments on his floor by the clumsy fingers of a slave, should be so durable as to survive the mishap, and be lifted again, with nothing worse than a dent, which a skilful artist could restore? And of the priceless gem of the artist, so of the humble vessels of the kitchen. That stray fragment of glass which set my brain on fire, and gave me five-and-twenty years of toil and unceasing thought, by some strange trick of chance, had been fused with certain properties in certain proportions. Chance had accomplished what it has taken me all these years to find out, and there, at last, its composition is developed. Watch now and you shall see how this piece of glass is matched by none in existence!’
Masthlion’s face was flushed with tumultuous speech. His trembling hand pulled his wife aside to give himself more room. Then he lifted the glass bowl as high as possible above his head, and threw it down on the floor, with all the force he could command. There followed no crash and flying of countless splinters, but only a dull thud, and the hardly tried glass rolled over lazily two or three times with a flattened side; otherwise it had suffered no damage. The potter drew himself up and looked round with pride and triumph in his eyes.
Neæra clapped her hands and kissed him. Her face reflected his supreme joy and satisfaction. Tibia stood silently, with her hand still grasped in her husband’s, as it might be in the manner of those bygone days of trial he had told them of. She said nothing; but her eyes passed from the object on the floor to her husband’s face, and there remained. She was a silent woman, and spoke no word of congratulation; but the pride and devotion in her face were eloquent enough. Masthlion, looking down into it, read it there. Both females regarded the wonderful piece of glass with no small amount of curiosity; but it was little else than mere curiosity. As an extraordinary discovery it interested them but little; as the means of bearing rapture to the breast of the discoverer it was precious beyond compare. Their eyes indeed visited it, but straightway left it to dwell on the recovered radiance which beamed on the face of its maker.
The attention of Cestus, on the other hand, was absorbed in exactly the reverse way. With great interest he stooped to pick up and examine the flattened glass vessel. He turned and twisted it about with the most minute scrutiny. Then, with his thick, powerful fingers, he tried to straighten out the dint. But in this he was unsuccessful, so he began to shake his head and hum disbelievingly through his pursed lips.
‘’Tis not clay,’ laughed Masthlion; ‘it needs a mallet and a tool or two. Come, I will show you!’