Seven years! Pol had said, “Where is the girl who can wait seven years?” and these words floated in the air. Never had the son of Martin Ker heard such strange voices amid the roaring of the ocean, nor in the rushing winds of the forest of the Druids.
Suddenly the tower also commenced to speak, not only through the cracks of the old windows when the mournful wind sighed, but with a confusion of sounds that resembled the busy whispering of a crowd, that penetrated through the closed doors of the laboratory, under which a bright light streamed.
Sylvestre Ker opened the door, fearing to see all in a blaze, but there was no fire; the light that had streamed under the door came from the round, red eye of his furnace, and happened to strike the stone of the threshold. No one was in the laboratory; still the noises, similar to the chattering of an audience awaiting a promised spectacle, did not cease. The air was full of speaking things; the spirits could be felt swarming around, as closely packed as the wheat in the barn or the sand on the sea-shore.
And, although not seen, they spoke all kinds of phantom-words, which were heard right and left, before and behind, above and below, and which penetrated through the pores of the skin like quicksilver passing through a cloth. They said:
“The Magi have started, my friend.”
“My friend, the Star shines in the East.”
“My friend, my friend, the little King Jesus is born in the manger, upon the straw.”
“Sylvestre Ker will surely go with the shepherds.”
“Not at all; Sylvestre Ker will not go.”
“Good Christian he was.”