“Ay, so it is,” answered Hayraddin; “and now you have it, you would fain begone, and leave me without granting the boon for which I have paid beforehand.”
“Tell me thy request,” said Quentin. “I will grant it if it be in my power.”
“Nay, it is no mighty demand—it is only in behalf of poor Klepper, my palfrey, the only living thing that may miss me.—A due mile south, you will find him feeding by a deserted collier's hut; whistle to him thus” (he whistled a peculiar note), “and call him by his name, Klepper, he will come to you; here is his bridle under my gaberdine—it is lucky the hounds got it not, for he obeys no other. Take him, and make much of him—I do not say for his master's sake,—but because I have placed at your disposal the event of a mighty war. He will never fail you at need—night and day, rough and smooth, fair and foul, warm stables and the winter sky, are the same to Klepper; had I cleared the gates of Peronne, and got so far as where I left him, I had not been in this case.—Will you be kind to Klepper?”
“I swear to you that I will,” answered Quentin, affected by what seemed a trait of tenderness in a character so hardened.
“Then fare thee well!” said the criminal. “Yet stay—stay—I would not willingly die in discourtesy, forgetting a lady's commission.—This billet is from the very gracious and extremely silly Lady of the Wild Boar of Ardennes, to her black eyed niece—I see by your look I have chosen a willing messenger.—And one word more—I forgot to say, that in the stuffing of my saddle you will find a rich purse of gold pieces, for the sake of which I put my life on the venture which has cost me so dear. Take them, and replace a hundred fold the guilders you have bestowed on these bloody slaves—I make you mine heir.”
“I will bestow them in good works and masses for the benefit of thy soul,” said Quentin.
“Name not that word again,” said Hayraddin, his countenance assuming a dreadful expression; “there is—there can be, there shall be—no such thing!—it is a dream of priestcraft.”
“Unhappy, most unhappy being! Think better! let me speed for a priest—these men will delay yet a little longer. I will bribe them to it,” said Quentin. “What canst thou expect, dying in such opinions, and impenitent?”
“To be resolved into the elements,” said the hardened atheist, pressing his fettered arms against his bosom; “my hope, trust, and expectation is that the mysterious frame of humanity shall melt into the general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear, and return under different forms—the watery particles to streams and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren.—In this faith have I lived, and I will die in it!—Hence! begone!—disturb me no farther!—I have spoken the last word that mortal ears shall listen to.”
Deeply impressed with the horrors of his condition, Quentin Durward yet saw that it was vain to hope to awaken him to a sense of his fearful state. He bade him, therefore, farewell, to which the criminal only replied by a short and sullen nod, as one who, plunged in reverie, bids adieu to company which distracts his thoughts. He bent his course towards the forest, and easily found where Klepper was feeding. The creature came at his call, but was for some time unwilling to be caught, snuffing and starting when the stranger approached him. At length, however, Quentin's general acquaintance with the habits of the animal, and perhaps some particular knowledge of those of Klepper, which he had often admired while Hayraddin and he travelled together, enabled him to take possession of the Bohemian's dying bequest. Long ere he returned to Peronne, the Bohemian had gone where the vanity of his dreadful creed was to be put to the final issue—a fearful experience for one who had neither expressed remorse for the past, nor apprehension for the future!