MAN AND GOD.
Nothing had meanwhile changed in the other part of the house. But the
old wizard had seen Balsamo enter his study and carry away the remains
of Lorenza, which had recalled him to life.
Shrieks of “Fire!” from the old man reached Balsamo, when, rid of his
dread visitors, he had carried Lorenza back to the sofa where only two
hours previously she had been reposing before the old sage broke in.
Suddenly he appeared to Althota’ eyes.
“At last,” said the latter, drunk with joy; “I knew you would have fear!
see how I can revenge myself! It was well you came, for I was going to
set fire to the place.”
His pupil looked at him contemptuously without deigning a word.
“I am thirsty. Give me some water out of that bottle,” he said wildly.
His features were breaking up fast; no steady fire was in his eyes, only
frightful gleams, sinister and infernal; under his skin was no more
blood. His long arms in which he had carried Lorenza as though she were
a child, now dangled like cuttlefish’s suckers. In anger had been
consumed the strength momentarily restored him by desperation.
“You won’t give me to drink? You want to kill me with thirst. You covet
my books and manuscripts and lore, my treasures! Ah, you think you will
enjoy them--wait a bit. Wait, wait!”
Making a supreme effort, he drew from under the cushion on which he was
huddled up a bottle which he uncorked. At the contact of air, a flame
spouted up from the glass and Althotas, like a magic creature, shook
this flame around him.
Instantly, the writings piled up around the old man, the scattered
books, the rolls of papyrus extracted with so many hardships from the
pyramids of Egypt and the libraries of Herculaneum, caught fire with the
quickness of gunpowder. The marble flour was turned into a sheet of
fire, and seemed to Balsamo one of those fiery rings described by Dante.
No doubt the old man thought that his disciple would rush among the
flames to save him, but he was wrong. He merely drew himself away calmly
out of the scope of the fire.
It enveloped the incendiary himself; but instead of frightening him it
seemed as if he were in his element. The flame caressed him as if he
were a salamander, instead of scorching him.
Though as he sat, it devoured the lower part of his frame, he did not
seem to feel it.
On the contrary, the contact appeared salutary, for the dying one’s
muscles relaxed, and a new serenity covered his features like a mask.
Isolated at this ultimate hour, the spirit forgot the matter, and the
old prophet, on his fiery car, seemed about to ascend to heaven.
Calm and resigned, analysing his sensations, listening to his own pangs
as the last voices of earth, the old Magus let his farewell sullenly
escape to life, hope and power.
“I die with no regret,” he said; “I have enjoyed all earthly boons; I
have known everything; I have held all given to the creature to
possess--and I am going into immortality.”
Balsamo sent forth a gloomy laugh which attracted the old man’s
attention.
Althotas darted on him a look through the veiling flames, which was
impressed with ferocious majesty.
“Yea, you are right: I had not foreseen one Thing--God!”
As if this mighty word had snatched the soul out of him, he dwindled up
in the chair: his last breath had gone up to the Giver whom he had
thought to deprive of it.
Balsamo heaved a sigh, and without trying to save a thing from the pyre
of this modern Zoroaster dying, he went down to Lorenza, having set the
trap so that it closed in all the fire as in an immense kiln.
All through the night the volcano blazed over Balsamo with the roaring
of a whirlwind, but he neither sought to extinguish it or to flee. After
having burnt up all that was combustible, and left the study bare to the
sky, the fire went out, and Balsamo heard its last roar die away like
Althota’ in a sigh.