CHAPTER THE NINTH.
ALDARIN AND HIS FUTURE.
“IBRAHIM BEN MALAKIM SALUTES HIS BROTHER ALDARIN THE SCHOLAR.”
The beams of the declining day, glanced gaily thro’ the arched windows of the Red-chamber, and the Count Aldarin paced with a hurried step across the marble floor, and his chest rose and fell, and his cheek flushed and paled, and now his voice was choked by rage, and again it was clear and deep-toned with hate.
“Baffled! and by whom? my own child. I have laid schemes—I have planned, I have plotted, and all for Annabel—my daughter. And she returns me—contempt and scorn. If, within the bowels of the earth, there is a place of torture, a boundless, illimitable and ever burning hell—if within the fire of the stars, there is written a Doom for the Damned, then to the very hell of hell, then to the very Doom of the Damned, have I sold myself, and all for thee, my daughter! What! a tear?—Shall I play the woman?—No—I will brace me up!—I will show the world the power of one who hates the whole accursed race. There was a time when I could weep, aye and talk of feeling and prate of the tenderness and humanity with any of them!—They gave me scorn, they heaped insult upon me!”
He looked around as tho’ he would compass the whole human race with his glance, and an expression of demoniac hate came over his features while he whispered between his clenched teeth.
“Have I paid the debt? Ha! ha! Let those who wronged me answer. Have I paid the debt? The man never lived who struck the meek Scholar and saw another sun. Not one! not one!—Nay there was one. He scorned me before the Princes of Christendom—it was at Jerusalem—I gave him scorn for scorn—with his mailed hand he struck me to the floor! I swore revenge—the steel was false, the dagger failed, but on his life and heart have I wreaked vengeance, such as man never wreaked before! The revenge of Aldarin must not be fed with the blood of his foe? No—by the fiend—no! But with the very life drops of his soul! My victim fights for the glory of Albarone. Little does he dream who now doth rule the ancient house.—Miserable fool, he toils and wars far in Palestine—he toils—he wars for me! Me! his ancient, his sworn and unrelenting foe! Ha! whence is that noise? Ha! ha! Surely it is not a groan from yon couch?”
Pausing for a moment, he eagerly listened, and again he spoke.
“Let me gather my thoughts. Let me nerve my soul for the trial of this night. The stake I hold in my hand is a fearful one—the hand that would grasp the very secrets of the grave, the weird mysteries of Old Death, should never tremble.”
He paced the floor yet more hurriedly, and was silent for a few moments.
“It is the very night!” he exclaimed, after a pause of intense thought. “The grand problem upon which I have bestowed my youth—my mind—my soul—my all—will soon be solved. This very night completes the thrice seven years. For thrice seven years has the beechen flame burned beneath the alembic, in my laboratory; in war, in difficulty, in danger, and in death, has the azure flame still burned on with undying lustre. Unbounded wealth is mine! Immortal life.
“In after-time, when long, long, centuries have passed away, men will speak of the glory, the mystery—and perchance the crime—that encircled the life of Aldarin the Scholar! And as the cheek of the listener grows pale, I—I—will be there, also a listener and to the story of my own fate! Aldarin will be there, but oh, how changed! Aldarin, no longer weak, trembling, bent with age—but Aldarin, young and glorious, with the signet of eternal youth and power stamped upon his unfading brow!