I shall not attempt to describe the strange sensations of Frederick on
returning from the burgomaster's house It will have been seen from the
glimpses we have had of him already, that he was of a quick and
sensitive disposition, and that the chance of defeat in the approaching
struggle would sting him into madness. He pictured to himself the
ferocious joy of Castero on being declared the victor--the agony of
Maina--the misery of his own degradation; and there is no doubt if the
mysterious Unknown, whose appearance he now felt certain was nothing but
a dream, had visited him in _propria persona_, that he would have
accepted his terms--his soul for triumph over his enemy, for the
possession of the girl he loved.
The morrow rose clear and cloudless. At the appointed hour Frederick
took his violin, and prepared to set out. But just when he was opening
the door, the man in the mantle--the same he had seen the day
before--stood before him.
"You did not expect to see me," said the Unknown, following Frederick to
the end of the room, where he had retreated. "I told you, nevertheless,
that we should meet again," he added, placing himself face to face with
the son of the brewer.
"Then it was no dream," murmured the youth, who appeared to have lost
all his resolution.
"Certainly not," returned the stranger, looking sarcastically at
Frederick from head to foot. "I promised you yesterday, on the banks of
the lake, that you would find your fiddle unharmed, and that I would
enable you to conquer your rival. But I don't feel that I am bound to do
any thing of the kind for nothing; generosity was never my forte, and I
have lived long enough among the burghers of Holland to insist on being
well paid for every thing I do."
"Who are you, then; and what is it you want?" enquired the Dutch
Orpheus, in an agitated voice.
"Who am I!" answered the man in the mantle, with all the muscles of his
face in violent convulsions--"Who am I!--I thought I had told you
yesterday when you asked me--I am your master. What do I want? I will
tell you. But why do you tremble so? you were bold enough when we met. I
saw the thought in your heart--if Satan should rise before me, and
promise me victory over my rival at the price of my soul, I would agree
to the condition!"
"Satan!--you are Satan!" shrieked Frederick, and closed his eyes in
horror.
"Didn't you find me out on the side of the lake, when you told me you
would exchange your salvation for years of love and glory. Yes, I am
that King of Darkness--_your_ master! and that of a great part of
mankind. But, come; the hour is at hand--the Burgomaster and the
Stadtholder await us. Do you accept the offer I make you?"
After a minute's hesitation, during which his features betrayed the
force of the internal contest, the musician made his choice. He had not
power to speak, but he raised his hand, and was on the point of making
the cross upon his forehead, to guard him from the tempter, when Satan
perceived his intention, and seized his arm.
"Think a little before you discard me entirely," he said, raising again
in the soul of the musician all the clouds of pride and ambition that
had given him power over it at first; "look into the box where your
violin is laid, and decide for the last time."
Frederick obeyed his tempter, and opened the case, but uttered a cry of
desperation when he saw his Straduarius in the same state of utter ruin
to which he had reduced it before. The neck separated from the body;
both faces shivered to fragments--the ebony rests, the gold-headed
stops, the bridge, the sides--all a confused mass of wreck and
destruction.
"Frederick! Frederick!" cried a voice from the brewery--it was his
father's.
"Frederick! Frederick!" repeated a hundred voices under the
windows--"Come down, come down, the Stadtholder is impatient! Castero
swears you are afraid to face him."
They were his friends who were urging him to make haste.
"Well?" enquired Satan.
"I accept the bargain. I give you my soul!" said Frederick, while his
cheek grew pale, and his eye flashed.
"_Your_ soul!" replied Satan, with a shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you
think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had
wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?--mine
by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?--_Your_ soul!"
repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I don't want it, I
assure you: at least not to-day--I feel sure of it whenever I require
it!"
"My soul, then, belongs to you--my fate is settled beforehand?" enquired
Frederick.
"You are an _artiste_," answered Satan, with a chuckling laugh, "and
therefore are vain, jealous, proud, and full of envy, hatred, malice,
and all uncharitableness. You perceive I shall lose nothing by waiting.
No, no; 'tis not your own soul I want--but that of your first-born, that
you must make over to me this hour!"
"What do you want me to do!"
"Here is the deed," said Satan, pulling a parchment from under his
cloak, on which strange characters were drawn, and letters in an unknown
language. "In putting your name to this, you bind and oblige yourself to
let me know when Maina is about to become a mother; and before the
baptismal water shall touch the infant's brow, you shall hang from the
window a piece of lace which shall have been worn by Maina at her
wedding. One of my satellites will be on the watch; he will come and
tell me when the signal is made and--the rest is my own affair! You will
find this agreement in your fiddle-case."
"Frederick! Frederick! be quick be quick!" again shouted the father.
"Frederick! Frederick! Castero is boasting about your absence!" cried
the chorus of impatient friends.
"I agree!" cried the _artiste_, and affixed his name. While he was
signing, the stranger muttered some words of mysterious sound, of which
he did not know the meaning; and immediately the pieces of the broken
instrument united themselves--rests, bridge, stops, faces, and sides,
all took their proper places, and the soul of the noble violin
re-entered its musical prison, at the moment when that of the future
baby of Maina was sold to the enemy of mankind!
"Now, then," said Satan, as he sank beneath the floor, "go where glory
waits thee."