Heroines of the Crusades Part 36

Tears for a moment quenched the fire in the old man's eyes, and Eleanora wept in sympathy. "And Enzio--?" she said, mournfully.

"Enzio yet languished in prison, the delicate boy, the idol of his imperial father. I found my way to Bologna, gold bribed his guard. An empty wine-cask was at hand, I enclosed him therein, and brought him safely to the gates. A single lock of hair betrayed my secret. 'Ha!'

exclaimed the sentinel, "tis only King Enzio has such beautiful fair hair.' I escaped with difficulty, but the boy was slain."

"Lives there not one of all the princely house?" inquired the queen.

"Frederic the Bitten lives, the deadly enemy of his father, and the daughter of Manfred is the wife of the Prince of Arragon. To her I carry the ring. A Saracen servant of the emperor ascribes to it magic virtues.

It shall be the talisman to bind Europe in a league against the infamous d'Anjou."

"My brother! knows he of thy purpose?" inquired Eleanora, apprehensively.

"I entered Castile to secure his a.s.sistance, and devoted myself to the practice of alchemy, to gain his confidence; but the philosopher is too intent upon the science of dull atoms to mingle in political strife."

"Thank heaven! that his studies keep him innocent of human blood,"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the queen. "Wouldst ought with me?" inquired she, after a pause, observing that the Jew remained silent with his eyes fixed upon her.

"Let my gracious queen pardon her servant, that he hath so long detained her with his tale of horror. Something I would add concerning my sweet Agnes. Call her not a Jewess. Her father hath long since abjured the burdensome rites of Judaism, and her mother--'tis enough to say that she resembled the Queen of England. Though I trust not in the pious fables of the priests, they seemed to charm her gentle spirit into peace. Let Agnes, therefore, I pray thee, be instructed in her mother's faith."

"Thy wishes shall be strictly regarded," replied Eleanora, "and may the same peace thou covetest for thy daughter, yet find its way to thy own unquiet breast."

CHAPTER XIII.

TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.

Each time the queen visited the laboratory of Alphonso, he made her acquainted with some new fact in philosophy, or some new device of alchemy, which awakened curiosity and gave rise to inquiry. The Spanish king, having made some discoveries in advance of the age, had fallen into the popular error of philosophers, that of repudiating all pre-established doctrines and maxims. Having laid down the theory that matter was eternal, and all external appearances the result of natural change, he was at infinite pains to account for all phenomena so as not to conflict with this proposition. The unbiased mind of Eleanora often detected in his a.s.sertions a vagueness of expression which pa.s.sed for argument, but which evidently imposed less upon his auditors than upon himself.

"Nature," said he, "arranges her work in circles: hence is the sky a dome, the earth a convex ball, and each minute atom of a globular form. The seasons roll their perpetual round, and as a ring hath neither beginning nor end, so must the material universe be eternal. The acorn groweth into the oak, and the oak again produceth the acorn; all outward manifestations are but parts in the great universal machine."

Eleanora, who had been attentively regarding an ingenious invention of the king's, interrupted this tirade, by remarking, "A few months before I left England, I visited the cell of friar Bacon, in Oxford. But I saw nothing in his laboratory so curious and wonderful as this work of my brother's."

The philosopher, flattered with the encomium, turned at once to exhibit the design of the machine. She followed his explanation with the greatest apparent interest; and when he had finished, replied, "In all these curious arrangements, I trace the wisdom of my brother; and it is that which gives me the greatest pleasure; and when I see the beneficent purposes for which it is designed, I feel a deeper veneration for the mind that could plan so skilfully."

She took a bunch of flowers from the hand of Agnes and approached the king. "I have been observing," said she, "the curious arrangement of these frail leaves, five green supporters, five yellow petals, five slender threads, and one central spire. I have gathered thousands of them in my rambles, and the same perfect number is found in every one. It has led me to inquire if Nature be not like my brother, a mathematician."

The workings of Alphonso's face showed how closely the simple truth of this proposition had driven home. "Nature," said he, "is an active principle, whose changes neither add to, nor detract from, the original matter of the universe. The metals," continued he, seeing she was about to respond, "the metals, my philosophical sister, form the basis of everything. I have detected iron in human blood, and a l.u.s.trous substance like that thou sawest in common ashes; hence do the alchemists believe that gold, the most precious of all, is scattered through nature, as the seeds of vegetation are scattered in earth, requiring only the proper gases to develop it and make it abundant as the pebbles on the sh.o.r.e."

"And have these gases been able to effect the desirable changes?" inquired the queen.

"There are innumerable obstacles in the way of these momentous inquiries,"

said the enthusiast. "Nature resists intrusion into her arcana, and I grieve to say, that we have not yet been able to bring about a definite result. Science has achieved only the procuring of the gases, while there remains still the nicer problem--to mix them in their right proportions, at their proper temperatures; for the nascent metal is more delicate than the embryo plant, and an excess of heat or cold destroys like frost or blight."

"Ah, me!" said Eleanora, with a sigh; "before this great end be accomplished I fear me my brother will have pa.s.sed away, and then all this toil and research will be lost."

"My sister," said Alphonso, abandoning his labors and seating himself, "thou hast unconsciously touched the thorn that rankles deepest in my breast. In nature, nothing seems made in vain; even decay produces new life, and man alone, the crowning work of all, seems made to no purpose."

"I have sometimes thought," said Eleanora, as if answering her own reflections, rather than replying to her brother's remarks, "that man might perhaps be made for the pleasure of a higher order of intelligence, as the lower orders of creation seem formed for our gratification, and that all our miseries spring from an attempt to thwart this plan."

"If thy thought be not the true solution of man's destiny, I know not what end he serves in the great scheme of existence," returned Alphonso, sadly; "I have pa.s.sed through various vicissitudes of life, from the greatness of earthly state to the poverty of a prison, and I have derived more pleasure from the achievements of science than from all my hereditary honors. And yet even these do not satisfy the longings of my nature."

"The scripture teaches us, that the superior intelligences find delight in benefitting mortals; and acting upon this hint the good have taught us, that to be blest ourselves we must seek to bless others," said Eleanora.

"True," replied the philosopher, breaking out once more into his old enthusiasm, "I have sometimes found alleviation from the weariness of my thoughts in the reflection, that the sciences in which I am engaged will one day exercise a wider and more perfect control over the destiny of the human race, than all the military orders backed by the sanction of ecclesiastical decrees. Science will open the door to Art; and her triumphant offspring, in a train of skillful inventions, shall pa.s.s on through long ages, breaking down the stern barriers of kingdoms, and uniting mankind in a common interest; war shall give place to useful Labor, and Science abrogating labor in its turn, shall satisfy the wants of the human race, accomplishing by a touch that which requires the might of thousands. Men shall then have leisure to perform the rites that lift the veil of Isis, and perhaps find means to _question_ Nature even in the innermost recesses of her temple."

"Oh! life! life!" said the philosopher, in an accent of despair, "why art thou so brief? Why must I die without discovering the sublime agencies?"

Eleanora waited in compa.s.sionate silence till her brother resumed in a calmer tone, "Think me not mad, my sister. If the feeble attempts of an imprisoned king, and a cloistered friar, can produce the wondrous results of which thou hast been witness, what shall the end be, when men free to pursue these investigations shall win the rich guerdon of fame and pecuniary reward? Thou hast heard, perchance, of the magician Albertus Magnus, who constructed a human figure, which performed the office of a servant; and of the stupid priest Thomas Aquinas, who, alarmed by the appearance of the automaton which opened the door and ushered him in with ceremonious obeisance, destroyed with one blow the work of years."

"I can forgive his terror," said Eleanora, "for I well remember my own affright, when the brazen head contrived by Friar Bacon, rolled along on the table towards me, and uttered '_pax vobisc.u.m_' with startling distinctness."

"Albertus Magnus performed a still more astonishing work," continued Alphonso. "At a banquet which he gave in the garden of his cloister, in the depth of winter, trees appeared covered with leaves and flowers, which vanished as if by enchantment, when the guests rose to depart."

"By what means were these wonderful works produced?" said Eleanora, with astonishment.

"With the mode of this operation I am not familiar," returned the philosopher. "Doubtless by some of the powerful agents alchemy reveals to its votaries."

"And what dost thou consider the chief agent in the universe?" said Eleanora, with the air of one inquiring after truth.

"Nature," returned the philosopher, emphatically.

"And will it pain my brother, if his unlearned sister call that great agent, who brings the flowers and leaves upon the trees in their season, by the name of G.o.d?"

"Certainly, the name can affect nothing," replied Alphonso; "and if thy priest require it of thee, sin not against him, by a more liberal view."

"And if the ignorant ma.s.s, who cannot be enlightened by thy theories, are restrained from vice by the thought that an Omniscient Being takes note of their actions, would it be well to free them from the necessary monitor?"

inquired his sister.

"It is doubtless well for man to be deterred from evil by salutary fear, till he rises to more exalted capabilities," replied Alphonso.

"And art willing," suggested Eleanora, cautiously, "to administer to this wholesome necessity until thy divine philosophy become sufficiently perfected to renovate their character."

"What priestly scheme hast thou in hand?" said her brother, regarding her with a look of mirthful curiosity.

"Thou knowest how dearly I love the Castilian language," returned the queen, "and I would that my brother should perpetuate his fame by that which will benefit his subjects. The sight of thy Jewish scribes, suggested the thought that it would be easy for thee to procure the translation of the Scriptures into our mother tongue."

The philosopher remained silent for a moment, and then answered, "knowest thou the effect of the measures thou proposest?"

"I conceive," replied Eleanora, "that it will make thy people more virtuous and happy, and," added she, mindful of his foible, "prepare them to receive all the additional light to which thy investigations may lead."

"There will be another effect, which, perhaps thou dost not antic.i.p.ate,"

replied Alphonso. "It will overthrow the power of the priesthood; for as now each man inquires of his confessor concerning his duty, he will, if enabled to read the boasted oracles, claim the right to interpret for himself. But thy experiment shall be tried, and now I bethink me, those learned scribes which _our benevolent son Sancho_ hath permitted us to employ in transcribing the laws of Spain into the language of Castile, shall be placed under thy direction for this important work."

Thus the object for which Eleanora had so long and so patiently prayed and planned, progressed under the auspices of a man who affected to despise the truths he yet condescended to propagate; and while the philosopher gave critical attention to the correctness of the work, he found leisure to complete his Astronomical tables, and to commence the first general history of Spain.

CHAPTER XIV.

AN ACCIDENT.