The Chronicles of Count Antonio

by Anthony Hope

Then they laid the young man down, Antonio stripping off his cloak and making a pillow of it; and Bena brought the horses, for they had led one with them for Antonio, in case there should be need of it; and they were but just mounted when twenty of the Duke's Guard appeared three hundred yards away, ascending the crest of the hill.

"Thank Heaven there are so many," said Antonio, "for now we can flee without shame;" and they set spurs to their horses and fled. And certain of the Duke's Guard pursued, but only two or three were so well mounted as to be able to come near them; and these two or three, finding that they would be man to man, had no liking for the business, and each called out that his horse was foundered; and thus it was that none of them came up with Count Antonio, but all, after a while, returned together to the city, carrying the young Spaniard Corogna, their captain. But as they drew near to the gates, Corogna opened his eyes and murmured some soft-syllabled name that they could not hear, and, having with failing fingers signed the cross, turned on his side and died. And they brought his body to the great hall of the Duke's palace.

There in the great hall sat Duke Valentine: his face was pale and his frown heavy, and he gazed on the dead body of the young man and spoke no word. Yet he had loved Corogna, and out of love for him had made him Captain of his Guard. And he passed his hand wearily across his brow, murmuring, "I cannot think, I cannot think." And the Lady Lucia stood by him, her hand resting on his shoulder and her eyes full of tears. But at last the strange spell which lay on the senses of the Duke passed away: his eyes again had the light of reason in them, and he listened while they told him how Antonio had himself escaped, and had afterwards slain Corogna on the top of the hill where Antonio's house had stood. And the Duke was very sorry for Corogna's death: and he looked round on them all, saying, "He made of me a log of wood, and not a man. For when I had drunk and looked in his eyes, it seemed to me that my eyes were bound to his, and that I looked to him for command, and to know what I should do, and that he was my God, and without his will I could not move. Yes, I was then to him even as he had seemed to be to me as we rode from Baratesta. And even now I am not free from this strange affection; for he seems still to be by me, and if his voice came now bidding me to do anything, by St. Prisian, I should arise and do it! Send my physician to me. And let this young man lie in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the Cathedral, and to-morrow he shall be buried. But when I am well, and this strange affection is passed from me, and hangs no more like a fog over my brain, then I will exact the price of his death from Antonio, together with the reckoning of all else in respect of which he stands in my debt."

But the Lady Lucia, hearing this, said boldly, "My lord, it is by your deed and through your devices that this gentleman has met his death, and the blame of it is yours, and not my lord Antonio's."

At her bold and angry words Duke Valentine was roused, and the last of his languor left him; and he glared at her in wrath, crying "Go to your house;" and he rose up suddenly from where he sat and went into his cabinet, Lorenzo attending him. And on the day after he walked first behind the bier of Corogna, and his face was very pale, but his air composed and his manner as it was wont to be. For the spell had passed and he was his own man again.

But Count Antonio heard with great grief of the death of the young man, and was very sorry that he had been constrained to kill him, and took great blame to himself for seeking counsel of the Wizard of Baratesta, whence had come death to the young man no less than to the wizard himself.

Such is the story of the drug which the Wizard of Baratesta gave to Duke Valentine of Firmola. To me it seems a strange tale, but yet it is well attested and stands on as strong a rock of testimony as anything which is told concerning the Count. The truth of it I do not understand, and often I ponder of it, wondering whether the Wizard of Baratesta spoke truth, and why the drug which had no power over Count Antonio bound the senses and limbs of the Duke in utter torpor and helplessness. And once, when I was thus musing over the story, there came to my cell a monk of the Abbey of St. Prisian, who was an old man and very learned; and I went to walk with him in the garden, and coming to the fountain we sat down by the basin; and knowing that his lore was wide and deep, I set before him all the story, asking him if he knew of this strange drug; but he smiled at me, and taking the cup that lay by the basin of the fountain, he filled it with the clear sparkling water and drank a little, and held the cup to me, saying, "I think the Wizard of Baratesta would have wrought the spell as well with no other drug than this."

"You say a strange thing," said I.

"And I do not marvel," said he, "that the Duke had no power over Count Antonio, for he knew not how to wield such power. But neither do I wonder that power lay in Count Antonio to bend the mind of the Duke to his will. I warrant you, Ambrose, that the wonderful drug was not difficult to compound."

Then I understood what he meant; for he would have it that the drug was but a screen and a pretence, and that the power lay not in it, but in the man that gave it. Yet surely this is to explain what is obscure by a thing more obscure, and falls thus into a fault hated of the logicians. For Heaven may well have made a drug that binds the senses and limbs of men. Has not the poppy some such effect? And the ancients fabled the like of the lotus plant. But can we conceive that one man should by the mere glance of his eye have such power over another as to become to him, by these means and no other, a lord and master? In truth I find that hard to believe, and I doubt whether a man may lawfully believe it. Yet I know not. Knowledge spreads, and men grow wiser in hidden things; and although I who write may not live till the time when the thing shall be made clear, yet it may be God's will to send such light to the men of later days that, reading this story, they may find in it nothing that is strange or unknown to their science and skill. I pray that they may use the knowledge God sends in His holy service, and not in the work of the devil, as did the Wizard of Baratesta.