The chamberlain of the household now came in, and bowing low said, "The learned Pietro Bramante bids me to acquaint you, my lord, that the constellations are in a favourable aspect for you to enter the House of Knowledge, but that the stranger must enter also, for the orbit of his star conjoins with your lordship's."
"Come!" said Wallenstein, his eyes lighting up into a curious eagerness, curious that is, in a man of his years, and more so to a Scot such as Nigel Charteris was, for the Scots are not given to appearing eager,—even of good fortune. And if the Scot were forty-eight, which was the tale of Wallenstein's years, and he were told that some one was ready to give him good news or bad, he would say, "Weel! weel! it'll no lose in the tellin'," and never move his legs an inch faster.
"Come! Let us see what this diviner has to say!"
Nigel was in truth by no means pleased. For he was a devout Catholic, and hated alike Jews and witchcraft, and thought little of horoscopes. The stars were a good guide on a clear night crossing a moor or in a strange country. That was all. But Wallenstein had once held all the German lands in his hands, and might again. It was a waste of opportunity not to second his whimsies: and if there was nothing in divination but hocus-pocus, why, there was no harm could come of it.
So he rose to his feet and followed: and Wallenstein led him upstairs to a long gallery, and at the farther end was a curtain drawn across. Portraits of many kings and princesses were ranged along the one wall, and upon the other where the windows were not. The windows looked out upon a balcony and the balcony upon a pleasaunce, but of this, it being now night, Nigel could see little. At long intervals were lighted candles, and many unlit between. And their footfalls, soldier-like and decided, echoed by walls and ceiling, made a great noise in Nigel's ear.
So they came to the curtain and a voice bade draw, and Pietro Bramante stood there and moved not a whit. There were no candles alight near him, and all the light that was came from a copper bowl in which he burned some tow with a blue and now a green flame.
The sage began a recitation in which he made much mention of the seventh house and divers stars and constellations being in opposition or in conjunction, and of this Abracadabra Nigel made nothing. The blue and green flame played upon his naturally brownish face and it was grey, and from Wallenstein's all colour seemed to be gone; instead was his face like a parchment full of lines, all but the eyes, which glittered blackly, never losing gaze upon the sage's face. Except for the latter's utterances there was deep silence, and the three seemed to be alone, for the chamberlain had retired, having ushered them into the gallery.
Then the sage blew out the flame, and his finger faintly glowing began to be visible writing on a wall, or some flat upright surface, and the figure he made was a circle, as truly drawn an O as Messire Michelangelo Buonarrotti might have made. And the circle was of light and glowed through more strongly in one part than another.
"Behold the orbit of the life of Albrecht von Waldstein, a perfect circle. Those lines are perfect circles that make a multiple of ten. It is in every tenth year that great causes may affect them—great upliftings of Fortune, or great fatalities.
"Now regard truly this orbit of another life, which passeth through the centre of the first," and again with unerring finger he drew another curve, which may have been a section of a greater circle, or of an elliptical figure, or of a parabola, but it was a true curve, and cut the circle at its centre. "This orbit passeth through the field of Mars and ariseth beyond the plane of the first orbit, and this signifieth that it is the life of a stranger by blood and nation."