While they were binding the last prisoner’s arms, Joseph came running and leaping up the steps and threw himself into his father’s embrace.
“Father, father,” he shouted excitedly, “it was Elzbietka who did this.” His eyes were shining as he thought about it. “Elzbietka—Elzbietka,” he kept repeating. “She heard me sound the trumpet in a different fashion from the way I usually sound it, for to-night I did not stop the Heynal upon the broken note, but played several notes more. She ran through the night alone to Jan Kanty’s and he aroused the city watch. I just met him at the foot of the stairs and he told me the whole story.”
“Bless the girl,” said the father, tears rising to his eyes. “And you, my son, how did you get free? I feared——”
“The man who was dragging me toward our home heard the watch marching through the street, and when he realized that they were going toward the church he took himself off like lightning into the darkness without another thought for me. But Elzbietka is at the scholar’s dwelling in the university building, waiting. I must go to her quickly and tell her all, and thank her that we are alive this night.”
Pan Andrew was busy with his own thoughts when the watch finally marched away with their prisoners.
The Great Tarnov Crystal! The Great Tarnov Crystal! That was what the Tartar said he had come for. Was it possible that the man had been telling the truth? For what other reason could he have surprised him thus in the tower? For what other reason the hurried expedition into the town with the boy, Joseph, and the instructions he had left with his men? If it had been revenge alone that the man was seeking, then he and Joseph would never have remained alive until now. But if the man had not obtained the crystal on the night of his attack upon his lodgings, then what in the name of heaven and earth had happened to it on that night, and where was the crystal now?
CHAPTER XIII
THE GREAT TARNOV CRYSTAL
It was late one evening in April, a few weeks after the unsuccessful attack of Peter upon the tower, that the alchemist, Kreutz, and the student, Johann Tring, were sitting upon rude stools in the loft above the alchemist’s lodging, arguing with much heat some question that had arisen between them. The day had been sultry for early spring and the sun was setting red over the distant hills, flooding with its crimson the high mound called the Krakus Mound over beyond the river on the road to Wieliczka and the salt mines.
Tring sat where he could see the sunshine through the little window, but the alchemist sat within the gathering darkness of the room. Above their heads on the slanting walls vials and glass tubes of the alchemist’s craft gleamed like precious stones, and every now and then some substance lying upon the hot coals of the braziers would hiss up into a little flame and smoke, for all the world like a serpent suddenly raising its slender head and coils above a quiet patch of grass.
“I tell you that I have had enough,” the alchemist replied to some remark of the student’s. “I am ready to forswear this scientific experiment into which we have so boldly launched and go back to my old studies which are much better suited to a God-fearing man.”