The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales Part 23

The discomfited lover fled from the house, and sought the treasurer's palace. It had vanished with all its monsters. Long did he roam the city ere he mixed again with the crowd, which an old meteorologist was addressing energetically.

"I ask you one thing," he was saying. "Will it ever rain again?"

"Certainly not," replied a geologist and a metaphysician together. "Rain being an agent of Time in the production of change, there can be no place for it under the present dispensation."

"Then will not the crops be burned up? Will the fruits mature? Are they not withering already? What of wells and rivers, and the mighty sea itself? Who will feed your cattle? And who will feed _you_?"

"This concerns us," said the butchers and bakers.

"Us also," added the fishmongers.

"I always thought," said a philosopher, "that this phenomenon must be the work of some malignant wizard."

"Show us the wizard that we may slay him," roared the mob.

Leonora had been communicative, and the student was immediately identified by twenty persons. The lock of hair was found upon him, and was held up in sight of the mult.i.tude.

"Kill him!"

"Burn him!"

"Crucify him!"

"It moves! it moves!" cried another division of the crowd. All eyes were bent on the hitherto stationary luminary. It was moving--no, it wasn't; yes, it certainly was. Dared men believe that their shadows were actually lengthening? Was the sun's rim really drawing nigh yonder great edifice?

That m.u.f.fled sound from the vast, silent mult.i.tude was, doubtless, the quick beating of innumerable hearts; but that sharper note? Could it be the ticking of watches? Suddenly all the public clocks clanged the first stroke of an hour--an absurdly wrong hour, but it was an hour. No mortal heard the second stroke, drowned in universal shouts of joy and grat.i.tude. The student mingled with the ma.s.s, no man regarding him.

When the people had somewhat recovered from their emotion, they fell to disputing as to the cause of the last marvel. No scientific man could get beyond a working hypothesis. The mystery was at length solved by a very humble citizen, a barber.

"Why," he said, "the old gentleman's hair has grown again!"

And so it had! And so it was that the unborn came to life, the dying gave up the ghost, Leonora pulled out a grey hair, and the student told the professor his dream.

THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

The aged philosopher Aboniel inhabited a lofty tower in the city of Balkh, where he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and the occult sciences.

No one was ever admitted to his laboratory. Yet Aboniel did not wholly shun intercourse with mankind, but, on the contrary, had seven pupils, towardly youths belonging to the n.o.blest families of the city, whom he instructed at stated times in philosophy and all lawful knowledge, reserving the forbidden lore of magic and alchemy for himself.

But on a certain day he summoned his seven scholars to the mysterious apartment. They entered with awe and curiosity, but perceived nothing save the sage standing behind a table, on which were placed seven crystal phials, filled with a clear liquid resembling water.

"Ye know, my sons," he began, "with what ardour I am reputed to have striven to penetrate the hidden secrets of Nature, and to solve the problems which have allured and baffled the sages of all time. In this rumour doth not err: such hath ever been my object; but, until yesterday, my fortune hath been like unto theirs who have preceded me. The little I could accomplish seemed as nothing in comparison with what I was compelled to leave unachieved. Even now my success is but partial. I have not learned to make gold; the talisman of Solomon is not mine; nor can I recall the principle of life to the dead, or infuse it into inanimate matter. But if I cannot create, I can preserve. I have found the Elixir of Life."

The sage paused to examine the countenances of his scholars. Upon them he read extreme surprise, undoubting belief in the veracity of their teacher, and the dawning gleam of a timid hope that they themselves might become partic.i.p.ators in the transcendent discovery he proclaimed. Addressing himself to the latter sentiment--"I am willing," he continued, "to communicate this secret to you, if such be your desire."

An unanimous exclamation a.s.sured him that there need be no uncertainty on this point.

"But remember," he resumed, "that this knowledge, like all knowledge, has its disadvantages and its drawbacks. A price must be paid, and when ye come to learn it, it may well be that it will seem too heavy. Understand that the stipulations I am about to propound are not of my imposing; the secret was imparted to me by spirits not of a benevolent order, and under conditions with which I am constrained strictly to comply. Understand also that I am not minded to employ this knowledge on my own behalf. My fourscore years' acquaintance with life has rendered me more solicitous for methods of abbreviating existence, than of prolonging it. It may be well for you if your twenty years' experience has led you to the same conclusion."

There was not one of the young men who would not readily have admitted, and indeed energetically maintained, the emptiness, vanity, and general unsatisfactoriness of life; for such had ever been the doctrine of their venerated preceptor. Their present behaviour, however, would have convinced him, had he needed conviction, of the magnitude of the gulf between theory and practice, and the feebleness of intellectual persuasion in presence of innate instinct. With one voice they protested their readiness to brave any conceivable peril, and undergo any test which might be imposed as a condition of partic.i.p.ation in their master's marvellous secret.

"So be it," returned the sage, "and now hearken to the conditions.

"Each of you must select at hazard, and immediately quaff one of these seven phials, in one of which only is contained the Elixir of Life. Far different are the contents of the others; they are the six most deadly poisons which the utmost subtlety of my skill has enabled me to prepare, and science knows no antidote to any of them. The first scorches up the entrails as with fire; the second slays by freezing every vein, and benumbing every nerve; the third by frantic convulsions. Happy in comparison he who drains the fourth, for he sinks dead upon the ground immediately, smitten as it were with lightning. Nor do I overmuch commiserate him to whose lot the fifth may fall, for slumber descends upon him forthwith, and he pa.s.ses away in painless oblivion. But wretched he who chooses the sixth, whose hair falls from his head, whose skin peels from his body, and who lingers long in excruciating agonies, a living death. The seventh phial contains the object of your desire. Stretch forth your hands, therefore, simultaneously to this table; let each unhesitatingly grasp and intrepidly drain the potion which fate may allot him, and be the quality of his fortune attested by the result."

The seven disciples contemplated each other with visages of sevenfold blankness. They next unanimously directed their gaze towards their preceptor, hoping to detect some symptom of jocularity upon his venerable features. Nothing could be descried thereon but the most imperturbable solemnity, or, if perchance anything like an expression of irony lurked beneath this, it was not such irony as they wished to see. Lastly, they scanned the phials, trusting that some infinitesimal distinction might serve to discriminate the elixir from the poisons. But no, the vessels were indistinguishable in external appearance, and the contents of each were equally colourless and transparent.

"Well," demanded Aboniel at length, with real or a.s.sumed surprise, "wherefore tarry ye thus? I deemed to have ere this beheld six of you in the agonies of death!"

This utterance did not tend to encourage the seven waverers. Two of the boldest, indeed, advanced their hands half-way to the table, but perceiving that their example was not followed, withdrew them in some confusion.

"Think not, great teacher, that I personally set store by this worthless existence," said one of their number at last, breaking the embarra.s.sing silence, "but I have an aged mother, whose life is bound up with mine."

"I," said the second, "have an unmarried sister, for whom it is meet that I should provide."

"I," said the third, "have an intimate and much-injured friend, whose cause I may in nowise forsake."

"And I an enemy upon whom I would fain be avenged," said the fourth.

"My life," said the fifth, "is wholly devoted to science. Can I consent to lay it down ere I have sounded the seas of the seven climates?"

"Or I, until I have had speech of the man in the moon?" inquired the sixth.

"I," said the seventh, "have neither mother nor sister, friends nor enemies, neither doth my zeal for science equal that of my fellows. But I have all the greater respect for my own skin; yea, the same is exceedingly precious in my sight."

"The conclusion of the whole matter, then," summed up the sage, "is that not one of you will make a venture for the cup of immortality?"

The young men remained silent and abashed, unwilling to acknowledge the justice of their master's taunt, and unable to deny it. They sought for some middle path, which did not readily present itself.

"May we not," said one at last, "may we not cast lots, and each take a phial in succession, as destiny may appoint?"

"I have nothing against this," replied Aboniel, "only remember that the least endeavour to contravene the conditions by amending the chance of any one of you, will ensure the discomfiture of all."

The disciples speedily procured seven quills of unequal lengths, and proceeded to draw them in the usual manner. The shortest remained in the hand of the holder, he who had pleaded his filial duty to his mother.

He approached the table with much resolution, and his hand advanced half the distance without impediment. Then, turning to the holder of the second quill; the man with the sister, he said abruptly:

"The relation between mother and son is notoriously more sacred and intimate than that which obtains between brethren. Were it not therefore fitting that thou shouldst encounter the first risk in my stead?"

"The relationship between an aged mother and an adult son," responded the youth addressed, in a sententious tone, "albeit most holy, cannot in the nature of things be durable, seeing that it must shortly be dissolved by death. Whereas the relationship between brother and sister may endure for many years, if such be the will of Allah. It is therefore proper that thou shouldst first venture the experiment."

"Have I lived to hear such sophistry from a pupil of the wise Aboniel!"

exclaimed the first speaker, in generous indignation. "The maternal relationship--"

"A truce to this trifling," cried the other six; "fulfil the conditions, or abandon the task."