Joseph Balsamo (5 page)

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A good way, sir ; four leagues.”

” Well, postilion, put silver shoes on your horses, and they will get on ; ” and as he said this the stranger opened the curtain, and held out four crowns.

” Many thanks ! ” said the postilion, receiving them in his broad hand, and slipping them into his great boot.

” The gentleman spoke, I think,” said the other postilion, who had heard the sound of money, and did not wish to be excluded from so interesting a conversation.

” Yes ; the gentleman says we must push on.”

11 Have you anything to say against that, my friend ? ” asked the traveler, in a kind voice, but with a firmness that showed he would brook no contradiction.

” Why, as to myself, I have nothing to say ; but the horses won’t stir.”

” What is the use of your spurs, then ? “

“I have buried them in the sides of the poor jades, and if it has made them move a step, may Heaven “

He had not time to finish his oath, for a frightful peal of thunder interrupted him.

” This is no weather for Christians to be out in,” said the honest fellow. ” See, sir, see ! the carriage is going of itself ; in five minutes it will go fast enough Jesus Dieu ! there we go ! “

And in fact, the heavy machine, pressing on the horses, they lost their footing. It then made a progressive movement, and, according to the mathematical increase of forces, its velocity augmented till, with the rapidity of aii arrow, it was visibly nearing the edge of a precipic3.

It was not now only the voice of the traveler which was heard ; his head was seen thrust out of the cabriolet.

” Stupid fellow ! ” cried he, ” will you kill us ? To the left ! the leaders to the left ! “

” Ah, monsieur, I wish from my heart I saw you on the left,” replied the frightened postilion, vainly trying to recover the reins.

“Joseph!” cried a female voice, now first heard, ” Joseph ! help ! help ! Oh, holy Virgin ! “

Indeed, danger so terrible and so imminent might well

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call forth that ejaculation. The carriage, impelled by its own weight, neared the precipice already one of the leaders appeared suspended over it ; three revolutions of the wheel, and horses, carriage, and postilions would all have been precipitated, crushed and mangled, to its base, when the traveler, springing from the cabriolet on the pole, seized the postilion by the collar, lifted him like a child, flung him two paces from him, leaped into the saddle, and, gathering up the reins, called to the second postilion :

“To the left, rascal, or I will blow out thy brains ! “

The command acted like magic. By an extraordinary effort the postilion gave an impulse to the carriage, brought it to the middle of the road, on which it began to roll on rapidly, with a noise that contended with that of the th under.

” Gallop I” cried the traveler, ”gallop ! if you slacken your speed, I will run you through the body, and your horses, too “

The postilion felt that this was no vain menace ; he redoubled his efforts, and the carriage descended with frightful speed. As it thus passed in the night, with it3 fearful noise, its naming chimney, and its stifled cries from within, it might have been taken for some infernal chariot drawn by phantom horses and pursued by a hurricane.

But if the travelers escaped from one danger, they met another. The cloud which had hung over the valley was as rapid as the horses. From time to time, as a flash rent the darkness, the traveler raised his head, and then, by its gleam, anxiety, perhaps fear, might have been seen on his face for dissimulation was not wanted then God only saw him. Just as the carriage had reached level ground, and was only carried on by its own impetus, the cloud burst with an awful explosion. A violet flame, changing to green and then to white, wrapped the horses the hind ones reared, snuffling the sulphurous air the leaders, as if the ground had given way beneath their feet, fell flat, but almost instantly the horse upon which the postilion was mounted regained his feet, and finding his traces snapped by the shock, he carried oil his rider, who disappeared in

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the darkness, while the carriage, after proceeding ten yards farther, was stopped by encountering the dead body of the lightning-stricken horse.

All this was accomplished by piercing shrieks from the female in the vehicle.

There was a moment of strange confusion, in which no one knew whether he was dead or living. The traveler felt himself all over to assure himself of his own identity. He was safe and sound, but the woman had fainted.

Although he suspected this from the silence which had succeeded to her shrieks, it was not to her that his first cares were directed. Scarcely had he lighted on the ground, when he hastened to the back of the vehicle.

There was the beautiful Arabian horse of which we have spoken terrified rigid with every hair rising as if life were in it. He tugged violently at his fastening, shaking the door to the handle of which he was secured. His eye was fixed, the foam was on his nostrils, but after vain efforts to break away, he had remained, horror-stricken by the tempest ; and, when his master whistled to him in his usual manner, and put out his hand to caress him, he bounded aside, neighing, as if he did not know him.

” Aye, always that devil of a horse,” muttered a broken voice from the carriage. ” Curse him, he has broken my wall ! “

Then, with double emphasis, this voice cried, in Arabic :

” Be still, demon ! “

” Do not be angry with Djerid, master,” said the traveler, loosing the horse, which he now tied to one of the hind wheels ; ” he has been frightened that is all ; and in-deed, one might well have been frightened at less ‘

Saying this, he opened the carriage door, let down the step, entered, and closed the door after him.

34 JOSEPH BALSAMO.

CHAPTER II.

ALTHOTAS.

THE traveler found himself face to face with an old man with gray eyes, a hooked nose, and trembling but busy hands. He was half buried in a great chair, and turned, with his right hand, the leaves of a manuscript on parchment, called “La Chiave del Gabinetto;” in his left he held a silver skimming-dish.

His attitude, his occupation, his face, motionless and deeply wrinkled, alive only, as it were, in the eyes and mouth, may seem strange to the reader, but they were certainly very familiar to the traveler; for he scarcely cast a look on the old man, nor on all that surrounded him, and yet it was worth the trouble.

Three walls so the old man called the sides of the carriage were covered by shelves filled with books. These walls shut-in his chair, his usual and principal seat, while above the books had been planned for his convenience several articles for holding vials, decanters, and boxes set iii wooden cases as earthen and glass-ware are secured at sea. He could thus reach anything without assistance, for his chair was on wheels, and with the aid of a spring he could raise it and lower it to any height necessary to attain what he wanted.

The room, for so we must call it, was eight feet long, six wide, and six high. Opposite the door was a little furnace with its shade, bellows, and tongs. At that moment there boiled in a crucible a mixture which sent out by the chimney the mysterious smoke of which we have spoken, and which excited so much surprise in old and young who saw the carriage pass.

Besides the vials, boxes, books, and papers strewed around, copper pincers were seen and pieces of charcoal which had been dipped in various liquids ; there was also

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a large vase half full of water, and from the roof, hung by threads, were bundles of herbs, some apparently gathered the night before, others a hundred years ago. A keen odor prevailed in this laboratory which in one less strange would have been called a perfume.

As the traveler entered, the old man wheeled his chair with wonderful ease to the furnace, and was about to skim the mixture in the crucible attentively nay, almost respectfully but disturbed by the appearance of the other, he grumbled, drew over his ears his cap of velvet, once black, and from under which a few locks of silver hair peeped out. Then he sharply pulled from beneath one of the wheels of his chair the skirt of his long silk robe a robe now nothing but a shapeless, colorless, ragged, covering. The old man appeared to be in a very bad humor, and grumbled as he went on with his operation.

” Afraid the accursed animal ! Afraid of what ? He has shaken the wall, moved the furnace, spilled a quart of my elixir in the fire. Acharat, in Heaven’s name, get rid of that brute in the first desert we come to.”

“In the first place ‘ said the other, smiling, “we’ shall come to no deserts ; we are in France. Secondly, I should not Tike to leave to his fate a horse worth a thousand louis d’ors, or, rather, a horse above all price, for he is of the race of Al Borach.’-

” A thousand louis d’ors ! I will give you them, or what is equal to them. That horse has cost me more than a million, to say nothing of the time, the life, he has robbed me of.”

” What has he done poor Djerid ? “

“What has he done? The elixir was boiling, not a drop escaping true, neither Zoroaster nor Paracelsus says that none must escape, but Borri recommends it.”

” Well, dear master, in a few moments more the elixir will boil again.”

” Boil ? See ! there is a curse on it the fire is going out. I know not what is falling down the chimney.”

” I know what is falling,” said the disciple, laughing *’ water.”

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” Water ? water ? Then the elixir is ruined ; the operation must be begun again as if I had time to lose ! Heaven and earth I” cried the old man, raising his hands in despair. ” Water ? What kind of water, Acharat ?”

” Pure water, master rain from the sky. Have you not seen that it rained ? “

” How should I see anything when I am working ? Water ? You see, Acharat, how this troubles my poor brain ! For six months nay, for a year I have been asking you for a funnel for my chimney. You never think of anything yet, what have you to do, you who are young ? Thanks to your neglect, it is now the rain, now the wind, which ruins all my operations : and yet, by Jupiter ! I have no time to lose. You know it the day decreed is near ; and if I am not ready for that day if I have not found the elixir of life farewell to the philosopher ! farewell to the wise Althotas ! My hundredth year begins on the loth of July, at eleven at night, and from this time to that my elixir must attain perfection.”

” But it is going on famously, dear master.”

” Yes, I have made some trials by absorption. My left arm, nearly paralyzed, has regained its power then, only eating, as I do, once in two or three days, and tak-ing a spoonful of my elixir, though yet imperfect, I have more time, and am assisted on by hope. Oh, when I think that I want but one plant, but one leaf of a plant, to perfect my elixir, and that we have perhaps passed by that plant a hundred five hundred a thousand times ! perhaps our horses have trodden it, our wheels crushed it, Acharat that very plant of which Pliny speaks, and which no sage has yet found or discovered, for nothing is lost. But say, Acharat, you must ask its name from Lorenza in one of her trances.”

“Fear not, master, I will ask her.”

” Meantime,” said the philosopher, with a deep sigh, ” my elixir remains imperfect, and three times fifteen days will be necessary to reach the point at which I was to-day. Have a care, Acharat, your loss will be as great as mine,

JOSEPH BALSAMO. 37

if I die, and my work incomplete. But what voice is that ? Does the carriage move ? “

“No, master : you hear thunder ‘

” Thunder ? “

“Yes ; we have nearly all been killed by a thunderbolt ; but my silk coat protected me.”

” Now, see to what your childish freaks expose me, Acharat ! To die by a thunderbolt, to be stupidly killed by an electric fire that I would myself bring down from heaven, if I had time, to boil my pot this is not only exposing me to accidents which the malice or awkwardness of men bring on us, but to those which come from heaven, and which may be easily prevented.”

“Your pardon, master ; I do not understand.”

” What, did I not explain to you my system of points my paper-kite conductor? When I have found my elixir, I shall tell it you again; but now, you see, I have not time.”

“And you believe one may master the thunderbolt of heaven ? “

” Certainly ; not only master it, but conduct it where yon choose ; and when I have passed my second half century, when I shall have but calmly to await a third, I shall put a steel bridle on a thunderbolt, and guide it as easily as you do Djerid. Meantime, put a funnel on my chimney, I beg you ! “

” I shall. Eest easy.”

” I shall ; always the future, as if we could both look forward to the future. Oh, I shall never be understood !” cried the philosopher, writhing in his chair, and tossing his arms in despair. ”
Be calm ! ‘ he tells me to be calm, and in three months, if I have not completed my elixir, all will be over. But so that I pass my second half century that I recover my powers of motion I shall meet no one who says, ‘I shall do’ I shall then myself exclaim,
I have done ! ’”

“Do you hope to say that ,with regard to our great work ? “

” Yes ; were I but as sure of oh, heavens ! discovering the elixir as I am of making the diamond I “

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; Then you are sure of that ? ” It is certain, since I have already made some.” Made some ? ” Yes ; look ! ” Where ? ” ‘ On your right, in the little glass vase.”

The traveler anxiously seized the little crystal cup, to the bottom and sides of which adhered an almost impalpable powder.

” Diamond dust ? ” cried the young man.

” Yes, diamond dust but in the middle of it ? “

” Yes, yes ; a brilliant of the size of a millet-seed.”

” The size is nothing ; we shall attain to the union of the dust, and make the grain of millet-seed a grain of hemp-seed, aod of the grain of hemp-seed a pea. But first, my dear Acharat, put a funnel on my chimney, and a conductor on the carriage, that the rain may not do-scend through my chimney, and that the lightning may go and sport itself elsewhere.”