gave him a gift priceless in value, not to be bought with gold, or
purchased with gems of price! A Book--a mighty book had descended to
him, through a long line of gallant ancestors. The founder of the race
of Ibrahim was a man of dark thoughts, and mysterious studies. Swept
from the path of life in the midst of his mystic researches, he left THE
BOOK to his children, with the last and most terrible Mystery, the final
Charm, which gave importance to the whole volume, confided to their
trust, in unwritten words--”
“These words thou wouldst speak to mine own ear and heart?”
“Even so, brother Aldarin! When I gave thee the Book, fraught with
strange mysteries, a fearful oath, sworn by every son of the race of
Ben-Malakim, bound me to keep the last words, which make the book
complete, secret from thine ear, until I was assured thou hadst won the
merit of the confidence.”
“Thou didst swear by the Eternal Flame, that thou wouldst meet me this
very night, in the soul or in the body, living or dead.”
“I am here! The far-east rings with the fame of Aldarin the Scholar--the
last secret is thine!”
“This night, at the hour of midnight, over the Altar of Marble, where
the Heart of the Dead mingles its crimson-drops with the White Waters of
the Alembic,--there,--will I crave the last Secret at thy hands!”
“There is one condition first.”
“Name it!”
“Lo! it is written in the Scroll which contains the Priceless Secret.
The Prince of Ben-Malakim must be a spectator in the lone chamber where
the SECRET is carried into action; he must command in the Halls of the
Scholar, who may receive the mystery, while the solemn ceremonies named
by the Book, are in progress.”
“The condition is strange--yet”--
“So read the words of THE BOOK!”
“Its behests shall be obeyed.”
“Then Scholar, and friend, let the twelve warriors who follow in my
train, take the place of the sentinels at the castle-gate; let them
command in the castle-hall, and be obeyed as thyself until the morrow
morn!”
“It shall be done. And now, my brother, draw near to the casement; let
the warm glow of the setting sun fall over thy features I would look
upon thy face, as was my wont in the ancient time. By my soul, thou art
sadly changed--fearful wrinkles traverse thy countenance, thy hair and
beard are gray; thine eyebrows white. A sad and fearful change!”
“The touch of time falls heaviest on the man of thought, good Aldarin.
Thou too, art sadly, fearfully changed.”
“And yet this night shall crown the toil of twenty-one years, with a
boon almost beyond mortal hope. Yes--yes,” he continued in a deep
whisper, as the full glow of the setting sun fell over his face--“The
sun sinks down in glory; his beams fall over the form of the mortal
Scholar--Lo! his beams gild the sky on the morrow morn and--how my
nerves fire, my heart is full to bursting--ALDARIN LIVES FOREVER.”
CHAPTER THE TENTH.
THE SCHOLAR ALDARIN AND THE LORD GUISEPPO
THE LAST INTERVIEW BEFORE THE GRAND SCENE, FOR WHICH ALDARIN HAS TOILED,
STRUGGLED AND ENDURED, FOR THRICE SEVEN YEARS.
“Come hither Guiseppo, son of mine, let me look upon thy face. Ah! I
remember well--her countenance lives again in thine. Boy, walk by my
side, along this solitary chamber; I would converse with thee. Hast thou
not oftentimes thought me a dark and stern old man?”
“My Lord, I have. The story of the soldier,--Rough Robin----”
“Name not the slave! Name him not. Have I not scattered his fable of
lies, to the winds? Art not satisfied with the guilt of this--Adrian?
Speak Guiseppo--have I not told thee a fair and truthful story?”
“I fear me--oh! Saints of Heaven--I fear me--that thy story is true!”
“Thou _fearest_ that my story is true! Is this well Guiseppo? Wouldst
rather thy _father_ had been guilty!”
“_My Lord_--”
“‘_My father_’ would sound as well.”
“My father, then; an’ I may speak the name; I thank God from my very
heart that I know thee guiltless. Yet I had much rather--the Saints
witness my truth--I had much rather, this spot of blood were washed from
the garments of all who bear the name of Albarone.”
“And do I not join in the wish! oh Guiseppo--Guiseppo Di Albarone, for I
will call thee by thine own true name--look upon me, mark my face, gaze
in mine eye! Thou hast known me for years, a man prematurely old, bent
with age ere the sands of my manhood’s prime had fallen in the glass.
Thus hast thou known me Guiseppo.”
“I have my Lord,--my father, and wondered at the cause.”
“Yet hast thou ever noted the change, the fearful change, that has
passed over this face within a few brief days? Dost mark the pallor of
this cheek, the blaze of this eye? Dost see this forehead seamed by a
single wrinkle between the brows; dost note these wan and wasted
features?”
“Yes, yes my father, I do. What hath wrought this fearful change?”
“Canst thou ask? A mighty grief has been swelling the channels of my
soul--grief for the _crime of Adrian_, grief that _his_ hands, the hands
of the son, should be red--dripping with his own father’s blood.”
He paused--covered his face--there was a moment of voiceless agony “and
yet, even in this hour of agony, the resemblance, the sad resemblance,
which has haunted me for years, comes back to my soul--”
“The resemblance, my father?”
“Boy, I tell thee, thy face is like the face of--Even now I see it!”
“Father?--”
“The face of thy mother!”
“I tremble my father; mine eyes are wet with burning tears. Tell me--oh,
tell me of _her_--my mother.”
“Twenty years ago, a nameless Scholar, who disdaining the din and battle
of war, gave his soul to higher and purer thoughts, won the love of a
proud and peerless Ladye. They might not wed, for she was the scion of a
Royal line. It was evening, boy, calm and gorgeous evening--well do I
remember the scene--when the proud Ladye gazed from the portico of a
kingly palace, over the temples and the towers of Jerusalem. The glow of
sunset was streaming over her face, and her full dark eyes, kindled with
the grandeur of the scene, when, when--listen Guiseppo,--her boy, her
bright eyed boy, lay prattling on her knee. The Scholar stood by her
side--he was silent, for his heart was full--oh, God! methinks I see
myself as _I was then_, even through the long lapse of years--”
“Thyself! The boy, who was’t--the boy?”
“Listen; hear the sequel of this dark story. There, there, concealed by
a column of that lofty portico, listening to the words of love that
broke murmuringly from the lips of the Ladye, gazing upon the face of
her bright-eyed boy, all smiles and laughter, there, unknown and
unsuspected, stood the Fiend and the Destroyer. Guiseppo--pass thy hand
over my brow--see, see, even after the lapse of twenty years, the cold,
beaded drops, like death-sweat, stand out from my forehead at the
memory.”
“I am breathless, my father--the Destroyer who stood listening--he
was--”
“Guiseppo, Guiseppo, let me whisper a world of horror to thine ear in a
single word. The light of the setting sun, fell over thy--thy mother’s
face, proud, peerless and beautiful--her child prattling on her knee,
her lover by her side--the first beams of the morrow’s sun beheld her
form, her form of grace and loveliness, flung prostrate over the marble
floor of her chamber--_outraged, bleeding, dead_.”
“Oh, God! my brain whirls! And the Destroyer?”
“Was a knight, a leader among the Princes of the Christian Host who won
Jerusalem from the Paynim legions. He had been scorned, rejected,
despised by the Ladye--thy mother--and behold,--oh fiend of hell--behold
his vengeance!”
“His name? Who--who--swept this devil from the earth?”
“He lives!”
“_Lives?_ and thou couldst wield a dagger!”
“Boy, wouldst thou wreak full and terrible vengeance on the ravisher of
thy mother?”
“Sate he upon the throne, slept he within the bridal chamber, knelt he
at the altar, I would sacrifice the wretch, to the Ghost of the
betrayed--”
“To thy knees, to thy knees, and take the oath of vengeance.”
“I kneel, father, I kneel. The oath, the oath!”
“What manner of oath dost thou hold most sacred? Wilt swear by the
Cross, by the Holy Trinity, by the Death of the Incarnate, or by the
awful existence of God?”
“BY MY MOTHER’S NAME.”
“Place the cross to thy lips, raise thy hands to heaven. Swear--by the
Holy Cross, by the Awful Trinity, by the Incarnate God--by thy Mother’s
Name--that when thy eye first beholds the wronger and the ravisher, thy
dagger shall seek his heart.”
“I swear--I swear!”
“Though he sate on the throne, though he slept within the bridal
chamber, though he knelt beside the altar!”
“I swear--I swear!”
And the hollow echoes of the Red-Chamber gave back the
echo--“Swear--swear!”
It was in sooth, a strange and impressive scene.
The dim light afforded by the lamp of silver, pendent from the ceiling,
glimmering over the hangings of the fatal bed, along the folds of the
tapestry and around the massive furniture of the room--the figures of
the scene, the aged man and the kneeling boy; Aldarin with his face
agitated by contending passions, with his eye gathering a brightness
that seemed supernatural, while Guiseppo half prostrate at his feet,
raised his hands to Heaven and with every feature of his countenance
darkened by revenge, looked above with flashing eyes as he uttered the
response--“I swear--I swear!”
It was a strange and impressive scene--and the flitting shadows that
fell over the hangings of the bed and along the floor, seemed to start
into life at the deep earnest tones of the Avenger.
“The name of the Destroyer--my father--his name--his name!--”
The Count Aldarin stooped low, applied his lips to the ear of Guiseppo
and whispered in a quick and hissing tone, the name of the Destroyer.
The kneeling Lord turned pale as death, as with a trembling voice he
repeated the well known name.
He bowed his head on his breast, and clasped his hands in very agony.
“My fate,” he shrieked, “is dark--oh Father of Heaven, most dark!----”
“Rise Guiseppo, my son,” said the Count Aldarin in a commanding tone.
“Rise Guiseppo, Lord of Albarone!”
“My father--your look is serious, and yet you utter but a merry jest.
Methinks it ill becomes the hour.”
“Guiseppo, Aldarin never deals in the jester’s wares. No--no my son, I
do not jest. Listen Guiseppo, and hear the solemn determination of my
soul. The events of these few brief days; the fearful death of my
brother, the knowledge that THE SON was the MURDERER; the flight of
my--my daughter; all have conspired to confirm that determination. I
have resolved to retire and retire forever from the world. Not within
the gloom of the monastery, not within the shadow of the cloister, does
Aldarin seek refuge from the sorrows of the world. No--no.
“Within the shadows of the most secret chamber of the Castle, (dead to
the world, unseen by living man, save thee Guiseppo, and yet companioned
by those Holy Men who this very night, arrived at Albarone, from the far
eastern lands,) in penitence and in prayer will Aldarin seek to win
favor from heaven for this--this--wretch, this father-murderer.
Guiseppo--I charge thee--let men believe me dead, and when thy right to
the Lordship of Albarone is questioned, speak boldly of the favor of his
Grace of Florence. He will defend the castle from wrong and shelter thee
from outrage.”
“My Lord--my father, this is a strange determination! I beseech thee do
not burden me with the rule of the Castle.”
“It must be so Guiseppo! From this night henceforth, Aldarin is dead to
the world. Whene’er thou wouldst say aught with me, a sealed parchment,
placed within a secret drawer arranged in the side of the beaufet, will
reach my hands.--And mark ye--let not a single day pass over thy head,
without looking into the secret drawer of the beaufet.”
“This is most wonderful! I ever thought thee a bold, ambitious man, and
now I behold Aldarin whom all men name with fear, retire from the world,
without a sigh.”
“One word more, Guiseppo. When thou hast stricken the blow--when the
Destroyer of thy mother’s honor, lies low in death, then, then, hasten
to the Round Room--thou hast heard of the chamber?--and within the
solitudes of its silent walls, read this pacquet--it contains the
fearful story of thy mother’s wrongs.”
“Forgive me, forgive me, my father--” shrieked Guiseppo, as if struck by
some sudden thought--“Swayed by some alternate affection for thee as--my
father--and regard for Adrian as--my friend, I have locked within the
silence of my bosom an important secret--_Sir Geoffrey o’ th’ Longsword
has returned from Palestine_.”
Had a thunderbolt fallen at the very feet of Aldarin, he could not have
started more suddenly backward, or thrown his arms aloft with a wilder
gesture.
“Sir Geoffrey o’ th’ Longsword, returned from Palestine!” he
shouted--“where is he now? How far from the Castle? How many soldiers
ride in his train? Was the murderer Adrian with him?”
“Father--it was his band I left, when disguised as a Palmer, I hastened
toward the Castle. He lurks within the recesses of the mountains, some
score of miles away--three hundred men ride in his train--Adrian, whom I
believed guiltless, is with him.”
“Did he speak aught of attacking the Castle Di Albarone?”
“After a lapse of seven days, it was resolved to attempt the surprisal
of the Castle. From the vague hints I gathered, it seems that their
plans were not well matured. Three days of the seven are now passed,
and--”
“The attack will be made four days from this! By my Soul! it pleases me!
Ha--ha--ha--Guiseppo, remember thy oath, the steel and the pacquet.”
And as he spoke, the Count Aldarin strode toward the door, his face
flushed by a wild glow of exultation, as he communed with himself in a
low, murmured tone.
“Four days--ha--ha--ha! Four days glide by--and ALDARIN IS IMMORTAL.”
Guiseppo was alone.
He gazed vacantly through the gloom of the Red Chamber and passed his
hands over his eyes, as if in the effort to awake from some fearful
dream.
All was solemn and silent around him, and he resigned his soul to dark
memories, while the weary moments of that fearful night glided slowly
on.
At last he sank down on the cold floor and slept.
A vision of his mother, his own beautiful and dark-eyed mother, rose
smiling above the waves of sleep, and then the boy thought she stood
beside him, holding a dagger in her fair white hand, while she beckoned
him on to the work of vengeance.
He awoke.
His form was pinioned in the embrace of a woman’s arms, and a woman’s
face hung over him, its large and lustrous eyes, mingling their light,
with his own.
“Rosalind!” he shrieked as he sprang to his feet with
surprise--“Rosalind here, in this lone chamber!”
“I am here--” she exclaimed as she fell weeping on his bosom--“’Tis a
strange story Guiseppo, but--my heart feels chilled when I think of the
fearful scene, which made this Red Chamber a place of death. An hour
ago, I slept within the bower of the Ladye Annabel, which the Count
allotted for my prison, when a strange figure, clad in robes of sable,
strode into the chamber, and bade me enjoy my freedom, as he pointed to
the open door! I hastened along the corridor, I descended the stairway,
and sought refuge in this chamber, from two dark figures who seemed
pursuing me, when I found thee, Guiseppo, flung prostrate along the cold
floor, and--”
“Thou didst watch over me, when sleeping, love of mine? Thy prison hath
not stolen the bloom from thy cheek or the fire from thine eye.”
As he spoke the door of the Red Chamber was flung suddenly open, and the
aged Steward of the Castle rushed to the side of Guiseppo, with hasty
steps and a disordered manner, shouting as his gray hairs waved in the
night wind--
“A message, Lord Guiseppo--a message of life and death! The Count
Aldarin sends thee this--read, and read without delay--for I tell thee
’tis a scroll of life and death.”
Guiseppo perused the scroll, and----
The spirit of the Chronicle beckons us on to the most dark and fearful
scene of the Historie.[5]
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
THE WHITE WATERS OF THE ALEMBIC.
ALDARIN AND IBRAHIM, GATHERED WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE ROUND ROOM,
HOLD THEIR SOLEMN WATCH, WHILE THE LAST SECONDS OF THE MYSTIC AGE ARE
PASSING TO ETERNITY.
“Tread lightly and with a softened footstep, Ibrahim, for the place in
which you stand has been the home of the deathless Thought for
twenty-one long years! Look--how the azure flame ascends in tongues of
flame around the sides of the hanging alembic--it is the last night of
its existence! On and on, through calm and cloud, through sunshine and
shadow, for twenty-one long years has it silently burned--a little
while, and the sands in yon glass will be spent--the Thought springs
into birth, and the azure flame will be quenched forever.”
With his slender form elevated to its full height, his arm extended, and
his robe thrown back from his shoulder, Aldarin the Scholar glanced
around the room, while his gray eye flashed and brightened as though his
very soul looked forth in its glance.
His brow was calm, clear and unclouded; his compressed lip wore an
expression of fixed determination; and a slight flush pervaded his pale
countenance.
The light of the pendant lamp fell over the form of the venerable
stranger, his dark-hued face, with the thick eyebrows, the waving hair,
and the flowing beard, all snow white in hue, standing out boldly in the
ruddy beams, while his dress of sable, relieved by the border of
glittering gold, gave solemnity and dignity to his appearance.
He stood calm and erect, gazing with his eyes of midnight darkness, upon
the strange altar, with its ever-burning flame of azure, or fixing his
glance upon the wild and speaking features of Aldarin the Scholar.
“Advance, Ibrahim--advance to the altar of marble”--exclaimed the
Scholar, with all the proud consciousness of the possession of a POWER
beyond the reach of the mass of mankind--“Gaze within the alembic--what
see’st thou?”
“I see a liquid clear as crystal, calm, motionless, and unruffled. The
most gorgeous mirror might fail to rival its shadowless brightness. The
alembic is heated to a white heat, yet the liquid bubbles not, nor
seethes, nor wears any appearance of the effect of heat. It is
beautiful--most beautiful.”
“Every drop is worth a life. Within the recesses of this altar another
flame, fanned by a subterranean current, burns beneath the Crucible,
which at last will give forth the Secret of Gold.--Gaze upon yon hour
glass, Ibrahim--the glass standing upon the corner of the altar--”
“The sands have fallen to within an half-hour of midnight--”
“When the last grain of sand falls in the glass, then will be complete
the mystic age of toil. The waters of life will then be pure, the secret
of gold will then be perfect. Twenty-one years will then have past since
first, I set me down to watch yon never-ceasing flame. Twenty-one
years--earth never beheld such years--each day an age, each year an
eternity!”
“Thy toil hath been most difficult!” exclaimed Ibrahim, in his
deep-toned voice--“the end draws nigh!”
“It was in that home of magnificent thoughts and mighty memories--the
city of Jerusalem, that the Glorious Thought dawned upon my soul!--
“‘To live forever,’ I cried as I gazed upon the wide city, with its
palaces and towers basking in the sunlight--‘to pass beyond the years of
mortal men, to exist while whole nations sink down to the slumber of the
grave, while kings succeed kings and millions of the mass of men glide
away on their inevitable march to the grave! To live forever--to feel
life throbbing in my veins, health flooding my very heart, and youth,
eternal youth crowning my brow, when Old Earth shall have been stamped
with the footsteps of ten thousand years--oh glorious boon, oh guerdon
worthy an age of toil!’
“I sought the boon when first I trod the Syrian soil, but my search was
wild and vague--yon massive volume was placed in my hands--”
“And then, the search became clear and distinct?”
“Yes--yes! Truth after truth dawned upon me, ingredient after ingredient
was added to the contents of the alembic,[6] and mad man that I was----but
stay a moment, Ibrahim. Gaze again upon the liquid of the alembic,
and tell me what thou see’st?”
“The same clear and undimmed liquid, resting calm and motionless within
the depths of the vessel.”
“Behold yon circular glass, resting beside the parchment scroll, on the
corner of the altar. It will magnify an insect until it swells to the
dimensions of the huge animal that haunts the forests of the far deserts
of India--the elephant, methinks ’tis called. Apply the glass to thine
eye, and gaze within the depths of the vessel.”
“A strange and magnificent spectacle! The clear liquid spreads out into
a magnificent lake, calm, unshadowed and rippleless. Yet stay--’tis
shadowed by a small island floating in the centre, an island composed
of some unknown substance, black as jet, yet scarcely perceptible even
through the wondrous medium of this glass!”
“When that speck of jet shall have vanished, then will the charm be
perfect!--I have said that I was rash and indiscreet--let my story
witness. I disregarded the words of the Book, I thought twenty-one years
too long and weary a time for me to sit in solemn silence while I
watched the progress of the Secret. A few words in the volume hinted
darkly and vaguely at a consummation of the Thought, attainable by one
bold grasp--that grasp I made--yes, yes, though my very soul was shaken
to the centre, and my brain reeled in the effort--I--I--_killed her_!”
“Killed her? Great God, what dark confession is this!”
“Yes--yes--I killed her, killed her as she slept in my arms and smiled
in my face. I drove the steel to her heart--I dabbled her long dark
locks in the warm blood that gushed from her bosom! Nay, start not man,
nor turn aside with such sudden horror--hast not perused yon
volume--know’st thou not the mystic words--“_The pure blood, warm from
the heart of her thou lovest, more than aught in earth or heaven, poured
into the liquid floating within the mystic vessel, will do the work of
years in a single hour_--”
“And she--she was thy”--
“My wife, my wife! My own, my dark-eyed Ilmeriner. Her blood, the pure
current of her very heart, purpled the White Waters of the
Alembic--and--and, fool that I was, I would not even wait the hour of
trial, I drank the liquid, greedily, and with loud exclamations of joy I
drank, and paid the price of my rashness. I neglected to use the
microscopic glass; the black speck had not vanished from the surface of
the liquid. I lay for days insensible; when I awoke to reason I found
this frame grown prematurely old. Had I but waited the little hour, the
draught would have infused immortal life into my veins. I was
rash--hasty--wild with the madness of my joy, and the draught proved
poison.”
“All thy efforts then were foiled.”
“I was foiled, but I did not despair. Again I built the fire on the
altar, again I added ingredient to ingredient; the corses of the dead I
searched for the last and most powerful Charm; years passed, and the
consummation of the Idea of my life approached, when--Fiend of Hell--I
discovered that the price of my rashness was not yet paid! As I pored
over the leaves of the mystic volume, a fearful thought, expressed in
dim and shadowy words, sunk in my very soul”--
“Methinks I see some new horror, lowering over the cloud of guilt and
blood that darkens the sky of thy life.”
“Blood, there was, yes, yes, but no guilt. By the Awful Influence that
has ruled my life, there was none! The Martyr of the Christian, strides
to the stake, that is to cut short the brief thread of his puny life,
with a few moments of pain, suffers, dies and is glorified. Is there no
glory for Aldarin! Have I not also been a martyr? There there, ever
before me, was the ONE GREAT IDEA, leading me on, and on, filling me
with high hopes and grand thoughts, that all pointed to the final good
of mankind--”
“Thou didst at first dream the Secret would benefit the mass of men?
Ha--ha--thou wouldst have made the MOB, immortal!”
“It is past, the dream is past. Yes, yes, Ibrahim I join in thy laugh. I
would have made the MOB immortal! Ha--ha! The multitude, what are they?
Now the autumn leaf, blown to and fro by the wind; now the hurricane
that a breath may raise; to-day all sunshine, to-morrow all storm and
cloud! THE MOB! To-day, they strew palm-branches in the path of the
Nazarene, and send their hozannas echoing to the sky,--‘Hail, hail king
of the Jews!’ To-morrow, the Nazarene stands bound and pinioned in the
halls of Pilate and their cry,--the cry of the Mob--comes shrieking
through the casement ‘_crucify, crucify him!_’”
“This in truth is the many-headed mob.”