The fiery eyes of the alchemist almost leaped from their sockets into the iron cup, and he could have clasped his marvellous visitor round the knees and worshipped him.
“And now,” says the stranger very gently and earnestly, “in return for satisfying your curiosity, I ask only your solemn promise to prosecute this dread science no more. Ha! you’ll not give it. Take, then, my warning, and remember the wages of this knowledge is sorrow.”
“But won’t you tell me how to commute—and—and—you have not produced the elixir,” the old man cried.
“ ’Tis folly—and, as I’ve told you, worse—a snare,” answered the young man, sighing heavily. “I came not to satisfy but to rebuke your dangerous though fruitless frenzy. Besides, I hear my friend still pacing the street. Hark! he taps at the window.”
Then came a sharp rattle as of a cane tapping angrily on the window.
The young man bowed, smiling sadly, and somehow got himself away, though without hurry, yet so quickly that the old man could not reach the door till after it had closed and he was gone.
“Oaf that I am!” cried the astrologer, losing patience and stamping on the ground, “how have I let him go? He hesitated—he would have yielded—his scruples, benevolent perhaps, I could have quieted—and yet in the very crisis I was tongue-tied and motionless, and let him go!”
He pushed open the little window, from which he observed the street, and thought he saw the stranger walking round the corner, conversing with a little hunchback in a red cloak, and followed by an ugly dog.
At sight of the great white head and beard, and the fierce features of the alchemist, bleared and tanned in the smoke of his furnace, people stopped and looked. So he withdrew, and in haste got him ready for the street, waiting for no refreshment, though he had fasted long; for he had the strength as well as the stature of a giant, and forth he went.
By this time the twilight had passed into night. He had his mantle about him, and his rapier and dagger—for the streets were dangerous, and a feather in his cap, and his white beard hidden behind the fold of his cloak. So he might have passed for a tall soldier of the guard.
The pestilence kept people much within doors, and the streets more solitary than was customary. He had walked through the town two hours and more, before he met with anything to speak of. Then—lo!-—on a sudden, near the Fountain of the Lion—it being then moonlight—he discovers, in a solitude, the figure of his visitor, standing with the hunchback and the dog, which he knew by its ungainly bones, and its carrying its huge head so near the ground.
So he shouts along the silent street, “Stay a moment, signor,” and he mends his pace.
But they were parting company there, it seemed, and away went the deformed, with his unsightly beast at his heels, and this way came the youth in black.
So standing full in his way, and doffing his cap, and throwing back his cloak, that his snowy beard and head might appear, and the stranger recognize him when he drew nigh. He cried—
“Borrhomeo implores thee to take pity on his ignorance.”
“What! still mad?” said the young man. “This man will waste the small remnant of his years in godless search after gold and immortality; better he should know all, and feel their vanity.”
“Better a thousand times!” cried the old man, in ecstacy.
“There is in this city, signor, at this time, in great secrecy, the master who taught me,” says the youth, “the master of all alchemists. Many centuries since he found out the elixir vitae. From him I’ve learned the few secrets that I know, and without his leave I dare not impart them. If you desire it, I will bring you before him; but, once in his presence, you cannot recede, and his conditions you must accept.”
“All, all, with my whole heart. But some reasonable pleasures—”
“With your pleasures he will not interfere; he cannot change your heart,” said the young man, with one of his heavy sighs; “but you know what gold is, and what the elixir is, and power and immortality are not to be had for nothing.”
“Lead on, signor, I’m ready,” cries the old man, whose face flushed, and his eyes burned with the fires of an evil rapture.
“Take my hand,” said the young man, more stern and pale than he had yet appeared. So he did, and his conductor seized it with a cold grip, and they walked swiftly on.
Now he led him through several streets, and on their way Borrhomeo passes his notary, and, lingering a moment, asks him whether he has a bond, signed by a certain merchant, with whom he had contracted for a loan. The notary, who was talking to another, says, suddenly, to that other—
“Per Baccho! I’ve just called to mind a matter that must be looked after for Signor Borrhomeo;” and he called him a nickname, which incensed the astrologer, who struck him a lusty box upon the ear.
“There’s a humming in my ear tonight,” said the notary, going into his house; “I hope it is no sign of the plague.”
So on they walked, side by side, till they reached the shop of a vintner of no good repute. It was well known to Borrhomeo—a house of evil resort, where the philosopher sometimes stole, disguised, by night, to be no longer a necromancer, but a man, and, so, from a man to become a beast.
They passed through the shop. The host, with a fat pale face, and a villainous smile, was drawing wine, which a handsome damsel was waiting to take away with her. He kissed her as she paid, and she gave him a cuff on his fat white chops, and laughed.
“What’s become of Signor Borrhomeo,” said the girl, “that
