A Prince of Good Fellows

by Robert Barr

Sir David, leading the way, drew aside one heavy curtain and then a second one, which allowed them to enter a long low-roofed room almost in total darkness, as far as the end to which they were introduced was concerned; but the upper portion of the hall was lit in lurid fashion. At the further end of the Refectory was a raised platform on which the heads of the Order had dined, during the prosperous days of the edifice, while the humbler brethren occupied, as was customary, the main body of the lower floor. Upon this platform stood a metal tripod, which held a basket of dazzling fire, and in this basket was set a crucible, now changing from red to white, under the constant exertions of two creatures who looked like imps from the lower regions rather than inhabitants of the upper world. These two strove industriously with a huge bellows which caused the fire to roar fiercely, and this unholy light cast its effulgence upon the faces of many notable men packed closely together in the body of the hall; it also shone on the figure of a tall man, the ghastly pallor of whose countenance was enhanced by a fringe of hair black as midnight. He had a nose like a vulture’s beak, and eyes piercing in their intensity, as black as his midnight hair. His costume also resembled that of a monk in cut, but it was scarlet in hue; and the radiance of the furnace caused it to glow as if illumined by some fire from within.

At the moment the last two entered, Farini was explaining to his audience, in an accent palpably foreign, that he was a man of science, and that the devil gave him no aid in his researches, an assertion doubtless perfectly accurate. His audience listened to him with visible impatience, evidently anxious for talk to cease and practical work to begin.

The wizard held in his right hand the bag of gold that the king had seen taken from the outer room. Presently there entered through another curtained doorway, on what might be called the stage, the money-taker in the monk’s dress, who handed to the necromancer the coins given him by Lyndsay and Ballengeich, which the wizard tossed carelessly into the bag. The attendant placed the scroll upon a table and then came forward with a weighing-machine held in his hand. The alchemist placed the gold from the bag upon one side of the scale, and threw into the other, bar after bar of yellow metal until the two were equal. Then the bag of gold was placed on the table beside the scroll, and the wizard carefully deposited the yellow bars within the crucible, the two imps now working the bellows more strenuously than ever.

The experiment was carried on precisely as Sir David had foretold, but there was one weird effect which the poet had not mentioned. When the necromancer added to the melting-pot huge lumps of what appeared to be common soil from the field, the mixture glared each time with a new colour. Once a vivid violet colour flamed up, which cast such a livid death-like hue on the faces of the knights there present, that each looked upon the other in obvious fear. Again the flame was pure white; again scarlet; again blue; again yellow. When at last the incantation was complete, the bellows-work was stopped. The coruscating caldron was lifted from the fire by an iron hook and chain, and set upon the stone floor to cool, bubbling and sparkling like a thing of evil; but the radiance became duller and duller as time went on, and finally its contents were poured out into a mould of sand, and there congealing, the result was lifted by tongs and laid upon the scale. The bag of gold was placed again in the opposite disc, but the heated metal far outweighed it. The wizard then unlocked a desk and threw coin after coin in the pan that held the bag, until at last the beam of the scale hung level. The secretary now pushed forward a table to the edge of the platform, and on the table placed a rush-light which served but to illuminate the parchment before him. With great rapidity he counted the gold pieces which were not in the bag, then whispered to his master.

The room was deathly still as the man in scarlet stepped forward to make his announcement.

“I regret,” he said, “that our experiment has not been as successful as I had hoped. This doubtless has been caused by the poverty of the earth from which I took my material. I shall dig elsewhere against our next meeting, and then we may look for better results. To-night I can return to you but double the money you gave to my treasurer.”

At this there went up what seemed to be a sigh of relief from the audience, which had been holding its breath with all the eagerness of a gambler, who had made a stake and awaited the outcome of the throw.

The necromancer, taking the parchment, called out name after name, and as each title was enunciated the bearer of it came to the edge of the platform and received from the secretary double the amount of gold pieces set down on the parchment. As each man secreted his treasure he passed along out of the hall; and so it came about that Sir David and Ballengeich, being the last on the list, received the remaining coins on the table, and silently took their departure.

The king spoke no word until they had entered the castle and were within his private room. Once there, the first thing he did was to pull from his pouch the coins he had received and examine them carefully one by one. There was no doubt about them, each was a good Scottish gold piece, with the king’s profile and bonnet stamped thereon.