The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales - Richard Garnett
"Stay where you are," whispered Belial to Adeliza; "stir not; you shall put
his constancy to the proof within five minutes."
Not all the hustling, mowing, and gibbering of the fiends would under
ordinary circumstances have kept Adeliza from her lover's side: but what is
all hell to jealousy?
In even less time than he had promised Belial returned, accompanied by
Madam Lucifer. This lady's black robe, dripping with blood, contrasted
agreeably with her complexion of sulphurous yellow; the absence of hair was
compensated by the exceptional length of her nails; she was a thousand
million years old, and, but for her remarkable muscular vigour, looked
every one of them. The rage into which Belial's communication had thrown
her was something indescribable; but, as her eye fell on the handsome
youth, a different order of thoughts seemed to take possession of her mind.
"Let the monster go!" she exclaimed; "who cares? Come, my love, ascend the
throne with me, and share the empire and the treasures of thy fond
Luciferetta."
"If you don't, back you go," interjected Belial.
What might have been the young man's decision if Madam Lucifer had borne
more resemblance to Madam Vulcan, it would be wholly impertinent to
inquire, for the question never arose.
"Take me away!" he screamed, "take me away, anywhere I anywhere out of her
reach! Oh, Adeliza!"
With a bound Adeliza stood by his side. She was darting a triumphant glance
at the discomfited Queen of Hell, when suddenly her expression changed, and
she screamed loudly. Two adorers stood before her, alike in every lineament
and every detail of costume, utterly indistinguishable, even by the eye of
Love.
Lucifer, in fact, hastening to throw himself at Adeliza's feet and pray her
to defer his bliss no longer, had been thunderstruck by the tidings of her
elopement with Belial. Fearing to lose his wife and his dominions along
with his sweetheart, he had sped to the nether regions with such expedition
that he had had no time to change his costume. Hence the equivocation which
confounded Adeliza, but at the same time preserved her from being torn to
pieces by the no less mystified Madam Lucifer.
Perceiving the state of the case, Lucifer with true gentlemanly feeling
resumed his proper semblance, and Madam Lucifer's talons were immediately
inserted into his whiskers.
"My dear! my love!" he gasped, as audibly as she would let him, "is this
the way it welcomes its own Lucy-pucy?"
"Who is that person?" demanded Madam Lucifer.
"I don't know her," screamed the wretched Lucifer. "I never saw her before.
Take her away; shut her up in the deepest dungeon!"
"Not if I know it," sharply replied Madam Lucifer, "You can't bear to part
with her, can't you? You would intrigue with her under my nose, would you?
Take that! and that! Turn them both out, I say! turn them both out!"
"Certainly, my dearest love, most certainly," responded Lucifer.
"Oh, Sire," cried Moloch and Beelzebub together, "for Heaven's sake let
your Majesty consider what he is doing. The Inspector----"
"Bother the Inspector!" screeched Lucifer. "D'ye think I'm not a thousand
times more afraid of your mistress than of all the saints in the calendar?
There," addressing Adeliza and her betrothed, "be off! You'll find all
debts paid, and a nice balance at the bank. Cut! Run!"
They did not wait to be told twice. Earth yawned. The gates of Tartarus
stood wide. They found themselves on the side of a steep mountain, down
which they scoured madly, hand linked in hand. But fast as they ran, it was
long ere they ceased to hear the tongue of Madam Lucifer.
THE TALISMANS
What a wondrous creature is man! What feats the humblest among us perform,
which, if related of another order of beings, we should deem incredible!
By what magic could the young student escape the weary old professor, who
was prosily proving Time merely a form of thought; a proposition of which,
to judge by the little value he appeared to set on the subject of his
discourse, he must himself have been fully persuaded? Without exciting his
suspicions in the smallest degree, the student stole away to a region
inconceivably remote, and presented himself at the portal of a magnificent
palace, guarded by goblins, imps, lions, serpents, and monsters whose
uncouthness forbids description.
A singular transformation seemed to have befallen the student. In the
professor's class he had been noted as timid, awkward, and painfully
respectful. He now strode up with an air of alacrity and defiance,
brandishing a roll of parchments, and confronted the seven principal
goblins, by whom he was successively interrogated.
"Hast thou undergone the seven probations?"
"Yes," said the student.
"Hast thou swallowed the ninety-nine poisons?"
"Ninety-nine times each," said the student.
"Hast thou wedded a Salamander, and divorced her?"
"I have," said the student.
"Art thou at this present time betrothed to a Vampire?"
"I am," said the student.
"Hast thou sacrificed thy mother and sister to the infernal powers?"
"Of course," said the student, "Hast thou attestations of all these
circumstances under the hands and seals of a thousand and one demons?"
The student displayed his parchments.
"Thou hast undergone every trial," pronounced the seventh goblin; "thou
hast won the right to enter the treasury of the treasurer of all things,
and to choose from it any one talisman at thy liking."
The imps cheered, the goblins congratulated, the serpents shrank hissing
away, the lions fawned upon the student, a centaur bore him upon his back
to the treasurer's presence.
The treasurer, an old bent man, with a single lock of silvery hair,
received the adventurer with civility.
"I have come," said the student, "for the talismans in thy keeping, to the
choice among which I have entitled myself."
"Thou hast fairly earned them," replied the old man, "and I may not say
thee nay. Thou canst, however, only possess any of them in the shape which
it has received at my hands during the long period for which these have
remained in my custody."
"I must submit to the condition," said the student.
"Behold, then, Aladdin's lamp," said the ancient personage, tendering a
tiny vase hardly bigger than a pill-box, containing some grains of a
coarse, rusty powder.
"Aladdin's lamp!" cried the student.
"All of it, at least, that I have seen fit to preserve," replied the old
man. "Thou art but just in time for this even. It is proper to apprise thee
that the virtues of the talisman having necessarily dwindled with its bulk,
it is at present incompetent to evoke any Genie, and can at most summon an
imp, of whose company thou wilt never be able to rid thyself, inasmuch as
the least friction will inevitably destroy what little of the talisman
remains."
"Confusion!" cried the young man, "Show me, then, Aladdin's ring."
"Here," replied the old man, producing a plain gold hoop.
"This, at least," asked the student, "is not devoid of virtue?"
"Assuredly not, if placed on the finger of some fair lady. For, its magic
properties depending wholly upon certain engraved characters, which I have
gradually obliterated, it is at present unadapted to any other use than
that of a wedding-ring, which it would subserve to admiration."
"Produce another talisman," commanded the youth.
"These," said the ancient treasurer, holding up two shapeless pieces of
leather, "are the shoes of swiftness, incomparable until I wore them out."
"This, at least, is bright and weighty," exclaimed the student, as the old
man displayed the sword of sharpness.
"In truth a doughty weapon," returned the treasurer, "if wielded by a
stronger arm than thine, for it will no longer fly in the air and smite
off heads of its own accord, since the new blade hath been fitted to the
new hilt."
After a hasty inspection of the empty frame of a magic mirror, and a
fragment of the original setting of Solomon's seal, the youth's eye lighted
upon a volume full of mysterious characters.
"Whose book is this?" he inquired. "Heavens, it is Michael Scott's!"
"Even so," returned the venerable man, "and its spells have lost nothing of
their efficacy. But the last leaf, containing the formula for dismissing
spirits after they have been summoned from the nether world, hath been
removed by me. Inattention to this circumstance hath caused several most
respectable magicians to be torn in pieces, and hath notably increased the
number of demons at large."
"Thou old villain!" shouted the exasperated youth, "is this the way in
which the treasures in thy custody are protected by thee? Deemest thou that
I will brook being thus cheated of my dear-bought talisman? Nay, but I will
deprive thee of thine. Give me that lock of hair."
"O good youth," supplicated the now terrified and humbled old man, "bereave
me not of the source of all my power. Think, only think of the
consequences!"
"I will not think," roared the youth. "Deliver it to me, or I'll rend it
from thy head with my own hands."
With a heavy sigh, Time clipped the lock from his brow and handed it to the
youth, who quitted the place unmolested by any of the monsters.
Entering the great city, the student made his way by narrow and winding
streets until, after a considerable delay, he emerged into a large public
square. It was crowded with people, gazing intently at the afternoon sky,
and the air was rife with a confused murmur of altercations and
exclamations.
"It is." "No, I tell you, it is impossible." "It cannot be." "I see it
move." "No, it's only my eyes are dazzled." "Who could have believed it?"
"Whatever will happen next?"
Following the gaze of the people, the youth discovered that the object of
their attention was the sun, in whose aspect, however, he could discover
nothing unusual.
"No," a man by him was saying, "it positively has not moved for an hour. I
have my instruments by me. I cannot possibly be mistaken."
"It ought to have been behind the houses long ago," said another.
"What's o'clock?" asked a third. The inquiry made many turn their eyes
towards the great clock in the square. It had stopped an hour ago. The
hands were perfectly motionless. All who had watches simultaneously drew
them from their pockets. The motion of each was suspended; so intense, in
turn, was the hush of the breathless crowd, that you could have heard a
single tick, but there was none to hear.
"Time is no more," proclaimed a leader among the people.
"I am a ruined man," lamented a watchmaker.
"And I," ejaculated a maker of almanacks.
"What of quarter-day?" inquired a landlord and a tenant simultaneously.
"We shall never see the moon again," sobbed a pair of lovers.
"It is well this did not happen at night," observed an optimist.
"Indeed?" questioned the director of a gas company.
"I told you the Last Day would come in our time," said a preacher.
It was still long before the people realised that the trance of Time had
paralysed his daughter Mutability as well. Every operation depending on her
silent processes was arrested. The unborn could not come to life. The sick
could not die. The human frame could not waste. Every one in the enjoyment
of health and strength felt assured of the perpetual possession of these
blessings, unless he should meet with accident or violent death. But all
growth ceased, and all dissolution was stayed. Mothers looked with despair
on infants who could never be weaned or learn to walk. Expectant heirs
gazed with dismay on immortal fathers and uncles. The reigning beauties,
the fashionable boxers and opera dancers were in the highest feather. Nor
did the intellectual less rejoice, counting on endless life and unimpaired
faculties, and vowing to extend human knowledge beyond the conceivable. The
poor and the outcast, the sick and the maimed, the broken-hearted and the
dying made, indeed, a dismal outcry, the sincerity of which was doubted by
some persons.
As for our student, forgetting his faithful Vampire, he made his way to a
young lady of great personal attractions, to whom he had been attached in
former days. The sight of her beauty, and the thought that it would be
everlasting, revived his passion. To convince her of the perpetuity of her
charms, and establish a claim upon her gratitude, he cautiously revealed to
her that he was the author of this blissful state of things, and that
Time's hair was actually in his possession.
"Oh, you dear good man!" she exclaimed, "how vastly I am obliged to you!
Ferdinand will never forsake me now."
"Ferdinand! Leonora, I thought you cared for _me_."
"Oh!" she said, "you young men of science are so conceited!"
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 multitude.
"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 muffled sound from the vast, silent multitude 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 gratitude. The
student mingled with the mass, 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 noblest 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
participators 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 assured 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 participation 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 passes 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 assumed 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 embarrassing
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."
Thus urged, the scholar approached his hand to the table, and seized one of
the phials. Scarcely, however, had he done so, when he fancied that he
detected something of a sinister colour in the liquid, which distinguished
it, in his imagination, from the innocent transparency of the rest. He
hastily replaced it, and laid hold of the next. At that moment a blaze of
light burst forth upon them, and, thunderstruck, the seven scholars were
stretched senseless on the ground.
On regaining their faculties they found themselves at the outside of
Aboniel's dwelling, stunned by the shock, and humiliated by the part they
had played. They jointly pledged inviolable secrecy, and returned to their
homes.
The secret of the seven was kept as well as the secret of seven can be
expected to be; that is to say, it was not, ere the expiration of seven
days, known to more than six-sevenths of the inhabitants of Balkh. The last
of these to become acquainted with it was the Sultan, who immediately
despatched his guards to apprehend the sage, and confiscate the Elixir.
Failing to obtain admission at Aboniel's portal, they broke it open, and,
on entering his chamber, found him in a condition which more eloquently
than any profession bespoke his disdain for the life-bestowing draught. He
was dead in his chair. Before him, on the table, stood the seven phials,
six full as previously, the seventh empty. In his hand was a scroll
inscribed as follows: