Heaven knows its time; the bullet has its billet,
Arrow and javelin each its destined purpose;
The fated beasts of Nature's lower strain
Have each their separate task.
OLD PLAY.
Agelastes, after crossing the Emperor in the manner we have already
described, and after having taken such measures as occurred to him to
ensure the success of the conspiracy, returned to the lodge of his
garden, where the lady of the Count of Paris still remained, her only
companion being an old woman named Vexhelia, the wife of the soldier
who accompanied Bertha to the camp of the Crusaders; the kind-hearted
maiden having stipulated that, during her absence, her mistress was not
to be left without an attendant, and that attendant connected with the
Varangian guard. He had been all day playing the part of the ambitious
politician, the selfish time-server, the dark and subtle conspirator;
and now it seemed, as if to exhaust the catalogue of his various parts
in the human drama, he chose to exhibit himself in the character of the
wily sophist, and justify, or seem to justify, the arts by which he had
risen to wealth and eminence, and hoped even now to arise to royalty
itself.
"Fair Countess," he said, "what occasion is there for your wearing this
veil of sadness over a countenance so lovely?"
"Do you suppose me," said Brenhilda, "a stock, or stone, or a creature
without the feelings of a sensitive being, that I should endure
mortification, imprisonment, danger and distress, without expressing
the natural feelings of humanity? Do you imagine that to a lady like
me, as free as the unreclaimed falcon, you can offer the insult of
captivity, without my being sensible to the disgrace, or incensed
against the authors of it? And dost thou think that I will receive
consolation at thy hands--at thine--one of the most active artificers
in this web of treachery in which I am so basely entangled?"
"Not entangled certainly by my means"--answered Agelastes; "clap your
hands, call for what you wish, and the slave who refuses instant
obedience had better been unborn. Had I not, with reference to your
safety and your honour, agreed for a short time to be your keeper, that
office would have been usurped by the Caesar, whose object you know,
and may partly guess the modes by which it would be pursued. Why then
dost thou childishly weep at being held for a short space in an
honourable restraint, which the renowned arms of your husband will
probably put an end to long ere to-morrow at noon?"
"Canst thou not comprehend," said the Countess, "thou man of many
words, but of few honourable thoughts, that a heart like mine, which
has been trained in the feelings of reliance upon my own worth and
valour, must be necessarily affected with shame at being obliged to
accept, even from the sword of a husband, that safety which I would
gladly have owed only to my own?"
"Thou art misled, Countess," answered the philosopher, "by thy pride, a
failing predominant in woman. Thinkest thou there has been no offensive
assumption in laving aside the character of a mother and a wife, and
adopting that of one of those brain-sick female fools, who, like the
bravoes of the other sex, sacrifice every thing that is honourable or
useful to a frantic and insane affectation of courage? Believe me, fair
lady, that the true system of virtue consists in filling thine own
place gracefully in society, breeding up thy children, and delighting
those of the other sex, and any thing beyond this, may well render thee
hateful or terrible, but can add nothing to thy amiable qualities."
"Thou pretendest," said the Countess, "to be a philosopher; methinks
thou shouldst know, that the fame which hangs its chaplet on the tomb
of a brave hero or heroine, is worth all the petty engagements in which
ordinary persons spend the current of their time. One hour of life,
crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks,
is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in
which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a
marsh, without either honour or observation."
"Daughter," said Agelastes, approaching near to the lady, "it is with
pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm reflection
might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity usually does
so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those belonging to mere
humanity, are employed daily in measuring out the good and evil of this
world, the termination of combats, or the fate of empires, according to
their own ideas of what is right or wrong, or, more properly, according
to what we ourselves conceive to be such. The Greek heathens, renowned
for their wisdom, and glorious for their actions, explained to men of
ordinary minds the supposed existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon,
where various deities presided over various virtues and vices, and
regulated the temporal fortune and future happiness of such as
practised them. The more learned and wise of the ancients rejected such
the vulgar interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference
to the public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the
gross fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning
the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the vulgar
entertained of an immortality, supposed to be possessed by creatures
who were in every respect mortal, both in the conformation of their
bodies, and in the internal belief of their souls. Of these wrise and
good men some granted the existence of the supposed deities, but denied
that they cared about the actions of mankind any more than those of the
inferior animals. A merry, jovial, careless life, such as the followers
of Epicurus would choose for themselves, was what they assigned for
those gods whose being they admitted. Others, more bold or more
consistent, entirely denied the existence of deities who apparently had
no proper object or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose
being and attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances,
had in reality no existence whatever."
"Stop, wretch!" said the Countess, "and know that thou speakest not to
one of those blinded heathens, of whose abominable doctrines you are
detailing the result. Know, that if an erring, I am nevertheless a
sincere daughter of the Church, and this cross displayed on my
shoulder, is a sufficient emblem of the vows I have undertaken in its
cause. Bo therefore wary, as thou art wily; for, believe me, if thou
scoffest or utterest reproach against my holy religion, what I am
unable to answer in language, I will reply to, without hesitation, with
the point of my dagger."
"To that argument" said Agelastes, drawing back from the neighbourhood
of Brenhilda, "believe me, fair lady, I am very willing to urge your
gentleness. But although I shall not venture to say any thing of those
superior and benevolent powers to whom you ascribe the management of
the world, you will surely not take offence at my noticing those base
superstitions which have been adopted in explanation of what is called
by the Magi, the Evil Principle. Was there ever received into a human
creed, a being so mean--almost so ridiculous--as the Christian Satan? A
goatish figure and limbs, with grotesque features, formed to express
the most execrable passions; a degree of power scarce inferior to that
of the Deity; and a talent at the same time scarce equal to that of the
stupidest of the lowest order! What is he, this being, who is at least
the second arbiter of the human race, save an immortal spirit, with the
petty spleen and spite of a vindictive old man or old woman?"
Agelastes made a singular pause in this part of his discourse. A mirror
of considerable size hung in the apartment, so that the philosopher
could see in its reflection the figure of Brenhilda, and remark the
change of her countenance, though she had averted her face from him in
hatred of the doctrines which he promulgated. On this glass the
philosopher had his eyes naturally fixed, and he was confounded at
perceiving a figure glide from behind the shadow of a curtain, and
glare at him with the supposed mien and expression of the Satan of
monkish mythology, or a satyr of the heathen age.
"Man!" said Brenhilda, whose attention was attracted by this
extraordinary apparition, as it seemed, of the fiend, "have thy wicked
words, and still more wicked thoughts, brought the devil amongst us? If
so, dismiss him instantly, else, by Our Lady of the Broken Lances! thou
shalt know better than at present, what is the temper of a Frankish
maiden, when in presence of the fiend himself, and those who pretend
skill to raise him! I wish not to enter into a contest unless
compelled; but if I am obliged to join battle with an enemy so
horrible, believe me, no one shall say that Brenildha feared him."
Agelastes, after looking with surprise and horror at the figure as
reflected in the glass, turned back his head to examine the substance,
of which the reflection was so strange. The object, however, had
disappeared behind the curtain, under which it probably lay hid, and it
was after a minute or two that the half-gibing, half-scowling
countenance showed itself again in the same position in the mirror.
"By the gods!" said Agelastes--
"In whom but now," said the Countess, "you professed unbelief."
"By the gods!" repeated Agelastes, in part recovering himself, "it is
Sylvan! that singular mockery of humanity, who was said to have been
brought from Taprobana. I warrant he also believes in his jolly god
Pan, or the veteran Sylvanus. He is to the uninitiated a creature whose
appearance is full of terrors, but he shrinks before the philosopher
like ignorance before knowledge." So saying, he with one hand pulled
down the curtain, under which the animal had nestled itself when it
entered from the garden-window of the pavilion, and with the other, in
which he had a staff uplifted, threatened to chastise the creature,
with the words,--"How now, Sylvanus! what insolence is this?--To your
place!"
As, in uttering these words, he struck the animal, the blow unluckily
lighted upon his wounded hand, and recalled its bitter smart. The wild
temper of the creature returned, unsubdued for the moment by any awe of
man; uttering a fierce, and, at the same time, stifled cry, it flew on
the philosopher, and clasped its strong and sinewy arms about his
throat with the utmost fury. The old man twisted and struggled to
deliver himself from the creature's grasp, but in vain. Sylvan kept
hold of his prize, compressed his sinewy arms, and abode by his purpose
of not quitting his hold of the philosopher's throat till he had
breathed his last. Two more bitter yells, accompanied each with a
desperate contortion of the countenance, and squeeze of the hands,
concluded, in less than five minutes, the dreadful strife. Agelastes
lay dead upon the ground, and his assassin Sylvan, springing from the
body as if terrified and alarmed at what he had done, made his escape
by the window. The Countess stood in astonishment, not knowing exactly
whether she had witnessed a supernatural display of the judgment of
Heaven, or an instance of its vengeance by mere mortal means. Her new
attendant Vexhelia was no less astonished, though her acquaintance with
the animal was considerably more intimate.
"Lady," she said, "that gigantic creature is an animal of great
strength, resembling mankind in form, but huge in its size, and,
encouraged by its immense power, sometimes malevolent in its
intercourse with mortals. I have heard the Varangians often talk of it
as belonging to the Imperial museum. It is fitting we remove the body
of this unhappy man, and hide it in a plot of shrubbery in the garden.
It is not likely that he will be missed to-night, and to-morrow there
will be other matter astir, which will probably prevent much enquiry
about him." The Countess Brenhilda assented, for she was not one of
those timorous females to whom the countenances of the dead are objects
of terror.
Trusting to the parole which she had given, Agelastes had permitted the
Countess and her attendant the freedom of his gardens, of that part at
least adjacent to the pavilion. They therefore were in little risk of
interruption as they bore forth the dead body between them, and without
much trouble disposed of it in the thickest part of one of the bosquets
with which the garden was studded.
As they returned to their place of abode or confinement, the Countess,
half speaking to herself, half addressing Vexhelia, said, "I am sorry
for this; not that the infamous wretch did not deserve the full
punishment of Heaven coming upon him in the very moment of blasphemy
and infidelity, but because the courage and truth of the unfortunate
Brenhilda may be brought into suspicion, as his slaughter took place
when he was alone with her and her attendant, and as no one was witness
of the singular manner in which the old blasphemer met his end.--Thou
knowest," she added, addressing herself to Heaven--"thou! blessed Lady
of the Broken Lances, the protectress both of Brenhilda and her
husband, well knowest, that whatever faults may be mine, I am free from
the slightest suspicion of treachery; and into thy hands I put my
cause, with a perfect reliance upon thy wisdom and bounty to bear
evidence in my favour." So saying, they returned to the lodge unseen,
and with pious and submissive prayers, the Countess closed that
eventful evening.