The knights stared in amazement at the Icelander, and some crossed themselves. "It is impossible! That no man can do! it cannot be done by natural means!--it must be done by witchcraft and devilry!" said the one to the other.
Drost Aagé was silent, and looked sharply and gravely at the Icelander. "I hold you neither for an unwise man, nor for one who would deal in falsehood and deceit, good Master Laurentius!" he at length began, "although what you tell us of your learned companion borders on the incredible--but are you not yourself deceived? You say you have but known this man of miracles a short time. In your admiration of his arts and his rare knowledge of the secrets of nature, you have concerned yourself but little about his principles and way of thinking, which, however, I consider to be the most important points in every man's character, whether he be scholar or layman. If he is not a juggler or braggart, I fear he is something worse. He would fain have us laymen believe he had found the philosopher's stone. Those who talk openly of such things are generally enthusiasts or impostors."
"That which is above our understanding, Sir Drost," answered the Icelander, "we are but too apt to misjudge as folly, or the invention of the evil-minded--but here our own self-conceit and vanity are to blame. That which the wisest men in the world have so long mused upon, cannot assuredly be an absurd imagination, and I doubt not the philosopher's stone will and must one day be found--if it be not found already. Perhaps we may meet at Skanor fair, Sir Drost!" he added, rising to depart, "My learned friend and travelling companion doth not visit princes and nobles only--the enlightenment of the ignorant vulgar is a more important object to him. I accompany him as amanuensis, partly from a present necessity, which I blush not to acknowledge, and in this lay mantle, that I may not give offence to my prejudiced colleagues; but I learn much in this way, and, as I said--I trust to return more rich in knowledge from these worldly bye-paths to the service of St. Olaf, and to my most venerable friend and protector at Nidaros, who probably may soon need support in the cause against his unruly canons."
The conversation was now broken off with the Iceland clerk, as Sir Helmer rushed almost breathless into the apartment. "It was Kaggé! Drost! there is no doubt of it," exclaimed Helmer, "but, by Satan!--he is already on board the Rostock vessel."
"Who? the dead Kaggé? dream ye, Helmer? Was it he ye meant before?"
"He, and none other--the base regicide! as surely as I have eyes and ears. He hath both his beard and eye-brows shaved; but I know his fox's face and screeching voice; the dull Rostocker mentioned his name himself in his drunkenness, out of defiance and pride. They insulted me in the ancient coarse fashion I will not name, and pushed off from shore with the outlaw before mine eyes."
"We must arrest them at Skanor tomorrow," answered Aagé, "if the criminal is on board the Rostock vessel, he hath now peace and respite of life under the Hanse flag and the Lubeck law; but whenever he sets foot on Danish ground he dies! Such pestilent ware no Hanseatic hath the privilege of unloading." They then retired to rest. The Iceland clerk had gone, and no more was seen of either him or the learned Thrand Fistlier. The account they had heard of this worker of wonders continued, however, till a late hour in the night, the theme of the knights' conversation at the drinking table.
CHAP. XIV.
Drost Aagé retired to rest in silence, but he vainly tried to sleep. He was uncertain whether he ought not instantly to have captured the two overbearing Hanseatics on the ground of their former menace at Sjöberg; here they were no longer ambassadors and privileged persons. If they had circulated false coin, and openly protected an outlaw upon Danish ground, they might with strict justice be called to account. The knowledge that the base Kaggé still lived also disquieted him; but what still more banished sleep from the Drost's eyes, was the idea of the mysterious Master Thrand, and his wondrous arts. That a human being possessed such a power over nature as to be able to imitate the thunder and lightning of the heavens, with all their terrific effects, appeared to him an amazing prodigy, and what the enthusiastic Master Laurentius had said of the still deeper views of his master--of the preservation of youth by a mysterious art, and of the philosopher's stone, as something actually existent in nature, had especially inspired the meditative and somewhat visionary Aagé with singular musings.
The countenance and mountebank deportment of the little deformed philosopher, had, indeed, awakened great doubts of his honesty, and what Aagé had comprehended of his expressions appeared to him strange and confused, as opposed to what he had been piously taught in childhood regarding the highest and eternal truths in which, despite his unhappy excommunication, he had been confirmed by his confessor, Master Petrus de Dacia, who had succeeded in making him at peace with himself and the church. But the Iceland clerk's ardent enthusiasm for Master Thrand and his worldly wisdom had not been without its effect; and Aagé was forced to confess there lay an acuteness and intelligence in the little mountebank's eye which he had never seen equalled in any of the pious and learned men he knew. Laurentius's open and ingenuous countenance bore witness also to the truth of his testimony as to what he had seen and admired in the disciple of the famous Roger Bacon; and the longer Aagé pondered on what he had heard, the more doubts and strange thoughts crowded upon his mind. Master Thrand's contempt of the age in which he lived, and the confidence with which he expressed himself respecting the only true revelation of nature with which he was, above all, conversant, had also excited a feeling of strange and painful uneasiness in Aagé's mind. The melancholy knight had often, when oppressed by the thought of his excommunication, sought peace and tranquillity in the contemplation of nature in lonely nights under a calm and starry sky, without, however, feeling able to dispense with the comfort and consolation of the church. He now stood, with his arms folded, in his sleeping chamber, gazing out on the gloomy heavens. "Were it possible!" said he to himself. "Am I wandering here with all my contemporaries in thick darkness? Know we neither our own nature nor that around us? Are all our purposes and energies but as the gropings of the blind, without aim or object? Will the time come when children will jeer at us as erring fools and insane dreamers, scared by what did not exist, and amused by empty juggling? Can this be? Can even that which is most high and sacred, which we have believed in and lived for with our fathers--for which thousands of inspired martyrs have died with a halo of glory around their beaming countenances--for which our pilgrims and Crusaders wend to Jerusalem, and renounce all the riches and treasures of this world--which was the spring of action in our ancestors' lives as our own, and made them heroes and conquerors in life and death--could all that be dreaming, deception, and ignorance? Could the existence and achievements of whole centuries have been a monstrous lie? No! No! If yonder fellow be not a liar and a cheat, there is neither truth, nor life, nor redemption, nor salvation." He shrunk with horror from his own thoughts. A sound now reached his ears which, at this moment, almost struck him with dismay. He fancied he once more heard the voice of the mysterious stranger close beside him.