Part 14 (2/2)

”Have you lost your senses?” shouted another voice athwart them: ”you are letting the stranger get off; knock him down first, and then fight your quarrel out.”

But blind with fury they heard him not. Already the first grey uncertain gleam of early morning was dawning. Antonio now felt a murderer's fist at his breast; but quickly and strongly he struck the a.s.sailer down.

”I am slain!” cried he, falling upon the floor: ”Madmen, blockade the doors; don't let him run away.”

Meanwhile Antonio had found the way out; he sprang through the little garden and over the fence; the robbers, who by this time had come to their senses, hurried after him. He was only a few paces before them, and they tried to cut him off. One of them threw stones after him; but they missed their mark. Amid hollowing and threatening they had reacht the wood.

Here the path split into sundry directions, and Antonio was at a loss which to choose. He lookt back, and saw the robbers separated; he attackt the nearest, and wounded him so that he let his sword drop.

But at the same moment he heard shouts, and saw new forms along a by-path hastening thither; his road would soon be blockt up.

In this extremity of need he met with his horse again on a little plot of gra.s.s in the wood. It seemed to have recovered from yesterday's over-fatigue. He leapt upon it, after rapidly seizing and righting the bridle; and with its utmost speed, as if the animal had felt his danger, it bore him along a foot-track out of the forest.

By degrees the cries of his pursuers sounded more and more distant; the wood grew lighter; and when he had reason to trust that there was nothing more to be afraid of, he saw the city lying before him in the glory of the rising sun.

People met him; countrymen were going the same road toward the city; travellers joined company with him; and in this way he came back to Padua, making little answer to the manifold questions and inquiries, why his dress was in such disorder, and why he had no hat. The citizens stared in wonder at him as he dismounted before the great house of the Podesta.

In the city on that same night strange things had been going on, which as yet were a secret to everybody. Scarcely had the darkness spread thickly abroad, when Pietro, whom people commonly called by the name of his birthplace, Apone or Abano, retiring into his secret study at the back of his house, set all his apparatus, all the instruments of his art, in due order, for some mysterious and extraordinary undertaking. He himself was clad in a long robe charactered with strange hieroglyphs; he had described the magical circles in the hall, and he arranged everything with his utmost skill, to be certain of the result. He had searcht diligently into the configuration of the stars, and was now awaiting the auspicious moment.

His companion, the hideous Beresynth, was also drest in magical garments. He fetcht everything at his master's bidding, and set it down just as Pietro thought needful. Painted hangings were unrolled over the walls; the floor of the room was covered over; the great magical mirror was placed upright; and nearer and nearer came the moment which the magician deemed the most fortunate.

”Hast thou put the crystals within the circles?” demanded Pietro.

”Yes;” returned his busy mate, whose ugliness kept bustling to and fro merrily and unweariably amid the vials, mirrors, human skeletons, and all the other strange implements. The incense was now brought; a flame blazed upon the altar; and the magician cautiously, almost with trembling, took the great volume out of his most secret cabinet.

”Do we start now?” cried Beresynth.

”Silence!” answered the old man solemnly: ”interrupt not these holy proceedings by any profane or any useless words.”

He read, at first in a low voice, then louder and more earnestly as he paced with measured steps to and fro, and then again round in a circle. After a while he paused and said: ”Look out, how the heavens are shaping themselves.”

”Thick darkness,” replied the servant on his return, ”has enwrapt the sky; the clouds are driving along; rain is beginning to drip.”

”They favour me!” exclaimed the old man: ”it must succeed.”

He now knelt down, and murmuring his incantations often toucht the ground with his forehead. His face was heated; his eyes sparkled. He was heard to p.r.o.nounce the holy names which it is forbidden to utter; and after a long time he sent his servant out again to look at the firmament. Meanwhile the onrush of the storm was heard; lightning and thunder chased each other; and the house seemed to tremble to its lowest foundations.

”Hearken to the tempest!” shouted Beresynth coming back hastily: ”h.e.l.l has risen up from below, and is raging with fire and fierce cracking crashes of thunder; a whirlwind is raving through the midst of it; and the earth is quaking with fear. Hold with your conjuring, lest the spokes of the world splinter, and the rim that holds it together burst.”

”Fool! simpleton!” cried the magician: ”have done with thy useless prating! Tear back all the doors; throw the house door wide open.”

The dwarf withdrew to perform his master's orders. Meanwhile Pietro lighted the consecrated tapers; with a shudder he walkt up to the great torch that stood upon the high candlestick; this too at last was burning; then he threw himself on the ground and conjured louder and louder. His eyes flasht; all his limbs shook and shrunk as in convulsions; and a cold sweat of agony trickled from his brow.

With wild gestures, as if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in again, and leapt for safety within the circles. ”The world is at the last gasp,” he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: ”the storms are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath the pillows of its bed to skulk away from its fears.”

The old man lifted up a face of ghastly paleness from the floor, and with wrencht and indistinguishable features screamed in sounds not his own: ”Be silent, wretch, and disturb not the work. Give heed, and keep a fast hold on thy senses. The greatest things are still behind.”

With a voice as if he would split his breast, he read and conjured again: his breath seemed often to fail him; it was as though the gigantic effort must kill him.

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