His pupil looked at him contemptuously without deigning a word.
“I am thirsty. Give me some water out of that bottle,” he said wildly.
His features were breaking up fast; no steady fire was in his eyes, only frightful gleams, sinister and infernal; under his skin was no more blood. His long arms in which he had carried Lorenza as though she were a child, now dangled like cuttlefish’s suckers. In anger had been consumed the strength momentarily restored him by desperation.
“You won’t give me to drink? You want to kill me with thirst. You covet my books and manuscripts and lore, my treasures! Ah, you think you will enjoy them—wait a bit. Wait, wait!”
Making a supreme effort, he drew from under the cushion on which he was huddled up a bottle which he uncorked. At the contact of air, a flame spouted up from the glass and Althotas, like a magic creature, shook this flame around him.
Instantly, the writings piled up around the old man, the scattered books, the rolls of papyrus extracted with so many hardships from the pyramids of Egypt and the libraries of Herculaneum, caught fire with the quickness of gunpowder. The marble flour was turned into a sheet of fire, and seemed to Balsamo one of those fiery rings described by Dante.
No doubt the old man thought that his disciple would rush among the flames to save him, but he was wrong. He merely drew himself away calmly out of the scope of the fire.
It enveloped the incendiary himself; but instead of frightening him it seemed as if he were in his element. The flame caressed him as if he were a salamander, instead of scorching him.
Though as he sat, it devoured the lower part of his frame, he did not seem to feel it.
On the contrary, the contact appeared salutary, for the dying one’s muscles relaxed, and a new serenity covered his features like a mask. Isolated at this ultimate hour, the spirit forgot the matter, and the old prophet, on his fiery car, seemed about to ascend to heaven.