that the wish of a man's inmost heart is oftenest that by which he is
ruined and made miserable? But listen to me, Septimius. No matter for my
earlier life; there is no reason why I should tell you the story, and
confess to you its weakness, its shame. It may be, I had more cause to
hate the tenant of that grave, than to hate you who unconsciously avenged
my cause; nevertheless, I came here in hatred, and desire of revenge,
meaning to lie in wait, and turn your dearest desire against you, to eat
into your life, and distil poison into it, I sitting on this grave, and
drawing fresh hatred from it; and at last, in the hour of your triumph, I
meant to make the triumph mine."
"Is this still so?" asked Septimius, with pale lips: "or did your fell
purpose change?"
"Septimius, I am weak,--a weak, weak girl,--only a girl, Septimius; only
eighteen yet," exclaimed Sibyl. "It is young, is it not? I might be
forgiven much. You know not how bitter my purpose was to you. But look,
Septimius,--could it be worse than this? Hush, be still! Do not stir!"
She lifted the beautiful goblet from the table, put it to her lips, and
drank a deep draught from it; then, smiling mockingly, she held it towards
him.
"See; I have made myself immortal before you. Will you drink?"
He eagerly held out his hand to receive the goblet, but Sibyl, holding it
beyond his reach a moment, deliberately let it fall upon the hearth, where
it shivered into fragments, and the bright, cold water of immortality was
all spilt, shedding its strange fragrance around.
"Sibyl, what have you done?" cried Septimius in rage and horror.
"Be quiet! See what sort of immortality I win by it,--then, if you like,
distil your drink of eternity again, and quaff it."
"It is too late, Sibyl; it was a happiness that may never come again in a
lifetime. I shall perish as a dog does. It is too late!"
"Septimius," said Sibyl, who looked strangely beautiful, as if the drink,
giving her immortal life, had likewise the potency to give immortal beauty
answering to it, "listen to me. You have not learned all the secrets that
lay in those old legends, about which we have talked so much. There were
two recipes, discovered or learned by the art of the studious old Gaspar
Felton. One was said to be that secret of immortal life which so many old
sages sought for, and which some were said to have found; though, if that
were the case, it is strange some of them have not lived till our day. Its
essence lay in a certain rare flower, which mingled properly with other
ingredients of great potency in themselves, though still lacking the
crowning virtue till the flower was supplied, produced the drink of
immortality."
"Yes, and I had the flower, which I found in a grave," said Septimius, "and
distilled the drink which you have spilt."
"You had a flower, or what you called a flower," said the girl. "But,
Septimius, there was yet another drink, in which the same potent
ingredients were used; all but the last. In this, instead of the beautiful
flower, was mingled the semblance of a flower, but really a baneful growth
out of a grave. This I sowed there, and it converted the drink into a
poison, famous in old science,--a poison which the Borgias used, and Mary
de Medicis,--and which has brought to death many a famous person, when it
was desirable to his enemies. This is the drink I helped you to distil. It
brings on death with pleasant and delightful thrills of the nerves. O
Septimius, Septimius, it is worth while to die, to be so blest, so
exhilarated as I am now."
"Good God, Sibyl, is this possible?"
"Even so, Septimius. I was helped by that old physician, Doctor Portsoaken,
who, with some private purpose of his own, taught me what to do; for he
was skilled in all the mysteries of those old physicians, and knew that
their poisons at least were efficacious, whatever their drinks of
immortality might be. But the end has not turned out as I meant. A girl's
fancy is so shifting, Septimius. I thought I loved that youth in the grave
yonder; but it was you I loved,--and I am dying. Forgive me for my evil
purposes, for I am dying."
"Why hast thou spilt the drink?" said Septimius, bending his dark brows
upon her, and frowning over her. "We might have died together."
"No, live, Septimius," said the girl, whose face appeared to grow bright
and joyous, as if the drink of death exhilarated her like an intoxicating
fluid. "I would not let you have it, not one drop. But to think," and here
she laughed, "what a penance,--what months of wearisome labor thou hast
had,--and what thoughts, what dreams, and how I laughed in my sleeve at
them all the time! Ha, ha, ha! Then thou didst plan out future ages, and
talk poetry and prose to me. Did I not take it very demurely, and answer
thee in the same style? and so thou didst love me, and kindly didst wish
to take me with thee in thy immortality. O Septimius, I should have liked
it well! Yes, latterly, only, I knew how the case stood. Oh, how I
surrounded thee with dreams, and instead of giving thee immortal life, so
kneaded up the little life allotted thee with dreams and vaporing stuff,
that thou didst not really live even that. Ah, it was a pleasant pastime,
and pleasant is now the end of it. Kiss me, thou poor Septimius, one
kiss!"
[_She gives the ridiculous aspect to his scheme, in an airy way_.]
But as Septimius, who seemed stunned, instinctively bent forward to obey
her, she drew back. "No, there shall be no kiss! There may a little poison
linger on my lips. Farewell! Dost thou mean still to seek for thy liquor
of immortality?--ah, ah! It was a good jest. We will laugh at it when we
meet in the other world."
And here poor Sibyl Dacy's laugh grew fainter, and dying away, she seemed
to die with it; for there she was, with that mirthful, half-malign
expression still on her face, but motionless; so that however long
Septimius's life was likely to be, whether a few years or many centuries,
he would still have her image in his memory so. And here she lay among his
broken hopes, now shattered as completely as the goblet which held his
draught, and as incapable of being formed again.
* * * * *
The next day, as Septimius did not appear, there was research for him on
the part of Doctor Portsoaken. His room was found empty, the bed
untouched. Then they sought him on his favorite hill-top; but neither was
he found there, although something was found that added to the wonder and
alarm of his disappearance. It was the cold form of Sibyl Dacy, which was
extended on the hillock so often mentioned, with her arms thrown over it;
but, looking in the dead face, the beholders were astonished to see a
certain malign and mirthful expression, as if some airy part had been
played out,--some surprise, some practical joke of a peculiarly airy kind
had burst with fairy shoots of fire among the company.
"Ah, she is dead! Poor Sibyl Dacy!" exclaimed Doctor Portsoaken. "Her
scheme, then, has turned out amiss."
This exclamation seemed to imply some knowledge of the mystery; and it so
impressed the auditors, among whom was Robert Hagburn, that they thought
it not inexpedient to have an investigation; so the learned doctor was not
uncivilly taken into custody and examined. Several interesting
particulars, some of which throw a certain degree of light on our
narrative, were discovered. For instance, that Sibyl Dacy, who was a niece
of the doctor, had been beguiled from her home and led over the sea by
Cyril Norton, and that the doctor, arriving in Boston with another
regiment, had found her there, after her lover's death. Here there was
some discrepancy or darkness in the doctor's narrative. He appeared to
have consented to, or instigated (for it was not quite evident how far his
concurrence had gone) this poor girl's scheme of going and brooding over
her lover's grave, and living in close contiguity with the man who had
slain him. The doctor had not much to say for himself on this point; but
there was found reason to believe that he was acting in the interest of
some English claimant of a great estate that was left without an apparent
heir by the death of Cyril Norton, and there was even a suspicion that he,
with his fantastic science and antiquated empiricism, had been at the
bottom of the scheme of poisoning, which was so strangely intertwined with
Septimius's notion, in which he went so nearly crazed, of a drink of
immortality. It was observable, however, that the doctor--such a humbug in
scientific matters, that he had perhaps bewildered himself--seemed to have
a sort of faith in the efficacy of the recipe which had so strangely come
to light, provided the true flower could be discovered; but that flower,
according to Doctor Portsoaken, had not been seen on earth for many
centuries, and was banished probably forever. The flower, or fungus, which
Septimius had mistaken for it, was a sort of earthly or devilish
counterpart of it, and was greatly in request among the old poisoners for
its admirable uses in their art. In fine, no tangible evidence being found
against the worthy doctor, he was permitted to depart, and disappeared
from the neighborhood, to the scandal of many people, unhanged; leaving
behind him few available effects beyond the web and empty skin of an
enormous spider.
As to Septimius, he returned no more to his cottage by the wayside, and
none undertook to tell what had become of him; crushed and annihilated, as
it were, by the failure of his magnificent and most absurd dreams. Rumors
there have been, however, at various times, that there had appeared an
American claimant, who had made out his right to the great estate of
Smithell's Hall, and had dwelt there, and left posterity, and that in the
subsequent generation an ancient baronial title had been revived in favor
of the son and heir of the American. Whether this was our Septimius, I
cannot tell; but I should be rather sorry to believe that after such
splendid schemes as he had entertained, he should have been content to
settle down into the fat substance and reality of English life, and die in
his due time, and be buried like any other man.
A few years ago, while in England, I visited Smithell's Hall, and was
entertained there, not knowing at the time that I could claim its owner as
my countryman by descent; though, as I now remember, I was struck by the
thin, sallow, American cast of his face, and the lithe slenderness of his
figure, and seem now (but this may be my fancy) to recollect a certain
Indian glitter of the eye and cast of feature.
As for the Bloody Footstep, I saw it with my own eyes, and will venture to
suggest that it was a mere natural reddish stain in the stone, converted
by superstition into a Bloody Footstep.