Part 7

“It is vain,——it is vain!” cried Basil; “I strive, but I cannot attain. I have cast all human bliss to the winds; I have poisoned my youth,——and thine, too, Isilda, joy of my life!——and all in vain. No immortal gifts are mine,——I would fain pierce into Nature’s depths, but she hides her face from me. O my master! thou didst tell me of the world of spirits which would surely be revealed unto me. I look up into the air, but no sylphs breathe soft zephyrs upon my hot cheek; I wander by the streams, but no sweet eyes, looking out from the depths of the fountains, meet my own; I am poor, but the gnomes of the earth answer not my bidding with treasures of silver and gold. And thou, O Fire, glorious element! art thou indeed peopled with these wonderful beings; or are they deaf to my voice, and invisible to my eyes alone, of all my brethren?”

And lo! as the student spoke, a bright pyramid of flame darted upward, and a voice, like that of the fire when it answers the soft breathing of the winds, replied,——

“I hear thee,——what wouldst thou with me?”

A paleness came over the young man’s cheek, and he drew back involuntarily.

“Dost thou then fear me, O mortal!” said the voice again, sadly. “Look again.”

Suddenly the pyramidal flame was cloven asunder, and there appeared in its centre a form, smaller than that of humanity, but perfect in feminine loveliness. Wavy wreaths of golden flame fell around her like a woman’s beautiful hair, and about her semi-transparent form twined an amber vesture, resembling in hue and airy substance the fire from which she sprung. Her hands were folded submissively on her breast, and her eyes were fixed earnestly on the young student’s face as she again repeated,——

“Dost thou fear me now?”

“How should I fear thee, beautiful vision?” cried Basil in ecstasy; “and what am I, that thou shouldst deign to visit me thus?”

“Thinkest thou that this is the first time I have visited thee?” said the Form. “I have been with thee, unseen, from thy childhood. When, in thy boyish days, thou wouldst sit gazing on the beautiful element which I rule, and from which I proceed, it was I who made it assume in thy fancy strange and lovely shapes. It was my voice thou heardest in the musical breathing of the flames, until thou didst love the beautiful fire; and it became to thee the source of inspiration. All this was my doing.”

“And now at last I behold thee, glorious creature!” exclaimed the student with rapture. “How shall I thank thee for thus watching over me invisibly, and at last revealing thyself to me!”

“We do but the will of our Creator,” answered the Salamandrine. “I and my kindred are His offspring, even as man; but our being differs from thine; superior and yet how inferior! We tend thee, we influence thee, we guide thee,——in this doing alike His command who made us, and our own pleasure; for our natures are purer and better than thine.”

“I feel it,” said Basil. “I cannot look upon thy all-perfect loveliness without knowing that such a form must be the visible reflection of a soul equally pure and beautiful.”

“A _soul_!” sighed the fire-spirit; “alas! this blessing is not ours. We see generation after generation of men perish from the face of earth; we watch them from their cradles into their graves, and still we are the same, our beauty unfaded, our power unchanged. Yet we know there must come a time when the elements from which we draw our being must vanish away, and then we perish with them, for we have no immortal souls: for us there is no after-life!”

As the Salamandrine ceased, the vapors of the fire encircled her as with a mist, and a wailing came from the red caverns of flame, as of spirits in grief, the burden of which was ever,——

“Alas for us!——we have no after-life.”

“Is it even so?” said the student. “Then are ye unhappy in the midst of your divine existence.”

The mist which veiled the Salamandrine floated aside, and she stood once more revealed in her superhuman beauty.

“Not unhappy,” she answered, with a radiant and celestial smile,——“not unhappy, since we are the servants of our beneficent Creator; we perform His will, and in that consists our happiness. We suffer no pain, no care; doing no sin, we have no sorrow; our life is a life of love to each other and to man, whose ministers we are. Are we not then happy?”

“It may be so,” said Basil, thoughtfully. “Ye are the creatures of Him who never made aught but good.” And he bowed his head in deep meditation, while there arose from the mystic fire an ethereal chorus; melodiously it pealed upon the opened ears of the enraptured student.

The spirits sang of praise; of the universal hymn which nature lifts up to the Origin of all good; of the perfect harmony of all His works, from the mighty planets that roll through illimitable space, down to the fresh green moss that springs up at the foot of the wayfaring child; of the world of spirits,——those essences which people the earth and float in the air like motes in the sunbeam, invisible, but yet powerful; how the good spirits strive with the fallen ones for dominion over man, and how the struggle must continue until evil is permitted to be overcome of good, and the earth becomes all holy, worthy to be the habitation of glorified beings.

“Happy art thou, O man!” they sang. “Even in thy infirmity, what is like unto thee? And earthly life is thine, half the sorrow of which thou mayst remove by patience and love; an earthly death is thine, which is the entrance to immortality. It is ours to guide thee to that gate of heaven which we ourselves may never enter.”

And all the spirits sang in a strain that died away as the fire sunk smouldering down, “Blessed art thou, O man!——strong in thy weakness, happy in thy sufferings. Thrice blessed art thou!”

The student was roused from his trance by a light footstep. A hand was laid on his shoulder, and a soft woman’s voice whispered,——

“Art thou then here all alone, and in darkness, my Basil?”

“All was light with me,——the darkness came with thee,” answered the student, harshly, like one roused from delicious slumbers by an unwelcome hand;——and yet the hand was none other than Isilda’s.

“Once thou used to call me thy light of life, Basil,” murmured the girl. “I would not come to anger thee.”

It was too dark to discern faces; but as Isilda turned to depart, Basil thought she was weeping, and his heart melted. What would he not have given, at the moment, for the days of old,——the feelings of old, when he would have drawn her to his bosom, and soothed her there with the assurances of never-ending love. But now he dared not; the link between him and earth was broken. He thought of the immortal gift just acquired, and he would not renounce its ecstatic joys,——no, not even for Isilda. He took her hand kindly, but coldly, saying,——

“Forgive me; I have been studying,——dreaming; I did not mean to say thou wert unwelcome.”

“Bless thee for that, my Basil, my beloved!” cried the girl, weeping, as she pressed his hand passionately to her heart and her lips. “Thou couldst not be unkind to me,——to thy betrothed wife.”

Basil turned away; he could not tell her that the tie was now only a name; and Isilda went on,——

“Thou hast not looked the same of late; thou art too anxious; or thou hast some hidden sorrow upon thee. Tell it to me, my Basil,” she continued, caressingly. “Who should share and lighten it but I, who love thee so?”

“Dost thou indeed love me so well, Isilda?”

“Thou art my all,——my life,——my soul! It were death itself to part from thee,” cried the girl, in a burst of impassioned feeling, as she knelt beside the bending form of her lover, and strove to wind her arms round his neck. She hardly dared to do so now to him who had once wooed that fondness with so many prayers.

“Woe is me, alas!” muttered the student. “Must thou also be sacrificed, Isilda?”

She did not hear his words, but she felt him unclasp her arms from his neck; and Isilda sank insensible at Basil’s feet.

The die was cast. Slowly the student laid her down,——her, the once beloved,——on the cold floor. He called “Margareta!” and before his sister entered, went out into the open air.

V.

Basil Wolgemuth had now gained the summit of his wishes. He had panted for the river of knowledge,——had found it, and allayed his burning thirst in its waters, which were to him a Lethe, bringing oblivion of all else. He walked as one in a dream, or like the false prophet of old, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open. He was gentle to his sister, and to the patient, sorrowful Isilda; but he shrank from their society, as he did from that of every living soul. He would disappear for days together, wandering in the woods and mountains, far from his home. There the student was alone, with his newly acquired sense,——there he penetrated into the marvels of the invisible world. He saw the Sylphs of the air floating over him, and fanning his slumbers with their ambrosial wings. The beautiful Undines spread their cool, wavy arms around him, and through the riven earth he beheld the Gnomes and Cobolds at work in their treasure-caves. Borne by the Salamandrines, he viewed the caves of the volcanoes; their lurid recesses were exposed to his gaze, and he saw the central fires smouldering beneath the surface of the globe,——the cradles of the earthquake.

Then, when the student returned, he would shut himself up in his chamber, and invoke the being who had first appeared to him,——the Salamandrine. He imbibed from her lips wisdom beyond that of man; he sunned himself in the light of her glorious beauty, and became insensible to all earthly things.

“O my master,” Basil would often murmur, “thou wert right! What count I now the cup of mortal pleasure while that of heaven is at my lips? I could torture, almost destroy this poor frail body for the sake of my soul.”

And while the student revelled in these ecstasies, his slight form grew more shadowy, his dreamy eyes became of a more fathomless depth, and his whole appearance was that of a spirit which had for a season assumed this mortal coil. No thought of Isilda, no yearning for her forsaken love, crossed his memory; the lesser feeling was all absorbed in the greater, for the one reigning passion of Basil Wolgemuth’s soul was a thirst after knowledge.

And Isilda, the devoted one, how fared it with her? She knew that no other maiden had stolen her lover’s heart, and yet it was changed toward her. She saw it to be so. Some overpowering passion had extinguished that of love; and her life’s hope was gone. She did not pine nor weep; she felt no anger towards Basil, for in her eyes he could do no wrong. Isilda had worshipped him from her girlhood, with a love mixed with idolatry, for it long seemed like “the desire of the moth for the star.” None other had ever won a thought from the maiden, though many had wooed her; but having once loved him, none else could have filled her heart forever. Even Basil, when he came to measure her love by his own, dreamed not of its intensity. So absorbing was this one passionate love, that even the sad change in him who was its object could not weaken it. She desired no more but to be near her betrothed; to see him; to hover round him as silently as his shadow,——only to have the blessed privilege of loving him, and the memory, sweet though mournful, that he had once loved her.

VI.

Basil Wolgemuth lay asleep on his couch. He had outwatched midnight, and was very weary. The follower of Rosencreutz, the philosopher, the man of genius, had not passed the limits of mortality; his earth-vesture clung about him still. Fatigue had overtaken him in the midst of his vigils; he had thrown himself down on the hard pallet, and fallen asleep, as sound as if the rude couch of the Rosicrucian were the monarch’s bed of down. The morning stars looked in at his casement, and the dim light of a single lamp fell on the countenance of the student. He lay calm as a little child, with folded hands, as if his mother had lulled him to sleep with songs. O, if that mother could have beheld him now, how would she have wept over the child of so many prayers!

I have said before that there was little beauty in Basil’s face, at least that mere beauty of form, which is so dazzling,——and it is good that it should be so, for a lovely face seems fresh from the impress of God’s hand; we naturally love it, cling to it, and worship it as such. But Basil’s sole charm had been the genius so plainly visible in his face, and a sunny, youthful, happy look, which made it pleasant to behold. Now, all this was long gone. But while he slept, a little of his olden self returned; a smile wandered over his lips, and his sunny hair fell carelessly, as in the days when Isilda’s fingers used to part it, and kiss his white, beautiful forehead. Suddenly a red glare lighted up the still shadow of the chamber,——it flashed on the eyes of the sleeper.

“Art thou here, O spirit?” murmured Basil, half roused, and dazzled by the brilliant light, which seemed a continuation of his dream.

But it was no celestial presence that shone into the student’s room. He awoke fully, rose up, and looked out into the night. The city lay hushed beneath the starlight like a palace of the dead; it seemed as though no mortal turmoil would ever more ruffle its serene repose. But far down the dark street, in a direction where Basil’s eyes had in former times been fondly turned waiting for the one solitary lamp which was to him like a star, lurid flames and white smoke burst forth, and contended with the gloom around. There was in the city the fearful presence of fire, and the burning house was Isilda’s.

With a sudden impulse, Basil leaped at once through the low window, and fled rather than ran to the scene. This time human love had the pre-eminence; he forgot all but Isilda,——Isilda perishing in the flames!

Wildly raged the fierce element, as if kindled by a hundred demons, who fanned it with their fiery breath, and leaped, and howled, and shouted, as it spread on with mad swiftness. Now it writhed in serpent-coils, now it darted upwards in forked tongues, and now it made itself a veil of dusky vapors, and beneath that shade went on in its devastating way. Its glare put out the dim stars overhead, and hung on the skirts of the clouds that were driven past, until the sky itself seemed in flames. House after house caught the blaze, and cries of despair, mingled with shrieks of frantic terror, rose up through the horrible stillness of night. The beautiful element which Basil had so loved——the cheering, inspiring fire——was turned into a fearful scourge.

The student reached the spot, and looked wildly up to the window he had so often watched. A passing gust blew the flames aside, and he distinguished there a white figure,——it was Isilda. Her hands were crossed on her bosom, and her head was bowed meekly, as if she knew there was no hope, and was content to die.

Basil saw, and in a moment he had rushed into the burning dwelling. He gained the room, and with a wild cry of joy, Isilda sprung into his arms. Without a word, he bore her, insensible as she was, through the smoke and flame, to a spot where the fire had not reached. Farther he could not go, for his strength failed him. He laid his burden down, and leaned against the wall.

“I might not live for thee, Isilda,” cried the student, “but I can die for thee. Yet is there no help,——no hope? Where are the spirits that were once subject unto me? And thou, my guardian,——spirit of fire!——is this thy work? Where art thou?”

“I am here!” answered a voice; and the Salamandrine appeared. The flames drew nearer, and Basil saw myriads of aerial shapes flitting among them in mazy wreaths. They came nigh,——they hovered over his mortal love,——their robes of seeming flame swept her form.

“Touch her not!” shrieked the student, as he bent over Isilda, his human fear overpowering him.

“The good and pure like her are ever safe,” replied the Salamandrine. “We harm her not.” And she breathed over the maiden, who awoke.

“O my Basil!” murmured the girl, “is death then past? Thou didst come to save me,——thou lovest me,——thou art mine again!” And she stretched out to him her loving arms; but Basil turned away.

“Hush!” he said, “dost thou not see them,——the spirits?”

Isilda looked round fearfully. “I see nothing,——only thee.”

The student’s eyes flashed with insanity. “See!” he cried, “they fill the air, they gather round us, they come between thee and me. Now,——now their forms grow fainter,——they are vanishing,——it is thou, woman! who art driving them from my sight forever. Stay, glorious beings, stay! I give up all,——even her.”

“Nothing shall part me from thee!” shrieked the girl, as she clung to her lover, and wound her arms round him. “No power in heaven or earth shall tear us asunder,——thou art mine, Basil,——let me live for thee,——die for thee.”

“Thou shalt have thy desire!” the student cried, as he struggled in her frantic clasp.

There was the gleam of steel,——one faint, bubbling sigh,——the arms relaxed their hold, and Basil was alone,——with the dead!

The fire stayed in its dire path, and a wailing sound rose as the spirits fled away. Heaven and earth had alike forsaken the murderer.

He knelt beside his victim; he wept, he laughed, he screamed; for madness was in his brain.

“I may clasp thee now, Isilda,” he shouted, “thou art all my own!” And he strained the cold, still form to his breast, kissing the lips and cheeks with passionate vehemence.

“I will make thee a pyre,——a noble funereal pyre,” he continued; “I will purify this mortal clay, and thou shalt become a spirit, Isilda,——a beautiful, immortal spirit.”

He bore the dead to where the fire raged fiercest; he laid his beloved on a couch; composed the frigid limbs, folded the hands, and, kissing the cold lips once more, retired to a distance, while the flames played round the still beautiful form that was once Isilda. Lovingly they inwreathed and enshrouded it, until at last they concealed it from the student’s gaze. He turned and fled. The fire hid in its mysterious bosom the ashes of that noble and devoted heart. Isilda had found the death she once thought so blest,——death by the hand of the beloved.

VII.

Fearfully did morning dawn on the eyes of the murderer. He had regained his chamber unobserved, and there he crouched in its most gloomy nook. His frenzy had passed away, and left the freezing coldness of despair. The darkness was terrible to him, and yet when the light of morning came, he shrank from it in horror, and buried his face in his garments to shut out the fearful glare. All day he remained motionless. Margareta’s loud weeping came to him from within. From her brother’s bolted door, she thought he had departed on one of his usual rambles, and Basil heard his name repeated often, mingled with Isilda’s,——whom all supposed to have perished in the flames.

Basil heard his sister’s sobs; but they fell idly on his stony ears. Many sounds rose from the street,——the widow’s cry, the orphan’s moan, and the despairing lament of the houseless and homeless,——but all were nothing to him. He kept the same immovable attitude until daylight waned, and then he rose and lit the fire on his hearth.

Brighter and brighter grew the blaze, and wilder gleamed the eyes of the student. He swayed his body to and fro with a low murmuring, and then he passionately invoked the Salamandrine.

“The sacrifice is complete——I have no bond to earth——my desire is free. Why delayest thou, O spirit? Come, teach me; let me know the past. Give me wisdom,——I thirst!——I thirst! Let me become as a god in knowledge!”

But the vision came not; there was no voice.

“Spirit of Fire! art thou deaf to me still? I have done all,——I have broken every human tie,——I have become what men would loathe. Hear me,——answer me, or I die!”

Wreaths of dusky vapor overshadowed the fire, and from them proceeded a melancholy voice:——

“O mortal, sin has entered thine heart; blood is on thy hand, and the polluted can have no fellowship with the pure. Thine eyes may behold us no more forever!”

A fearful shudder passed through the student’s frame.

“It is false! Cursed spirits, ye have deceived me!”

“It is not we who have deceived thee, but thine own soul,” answered the Salamandrine. “We are not evil; unseen, we would have watched over thee thy whole life through. It was thou who didst long after what is permitted but to few,——to hold commune with the invisible. To do this with safety, man must keep a heart pure as fearless, and such was not thine. Thou didst seek us,——we allured not thee. Blame not us, therefore, but thy own weakness. Thou hast sinned, and henceforth we are invisible to thee!”

“Woe! woe!” cried Basil, in agony; “have I then lost all? Adorable spirit, guide of my life, have mercy!——forsake me not!”

“I do not forsake thee, O poor mortal!” answered the voice, sadly. “I am here, beautiful and tender as before; but thou art no longer able to behold me. Sin has darkened thine eyes, and thou wilt see me no more——forever.”

“No more?” echoed the student in tones of thrilling misery.

“No more,” replied the mournful accents of the Salamandrine; and a faint chorus, like the sighing of the wind, echoed plaintively,——

“No more, O, poor mortal, no more!”

The vapor swept away from the fire, and the student was left to his despair.

VIII.

Two days after the terrible fire, some who loved and pitied the desolate Margareta forcibly entered her brother’s room. They found Basil dead. He lay on the floor, his marble face upturned to their horror-stricken view. There might have been agony in his last moments, for the hands were tightly pressed upon the heart; but all was calmness now. The features had settled into their eternal repose. How or when the spirit parted none knew, save Him who gave it, and who had now reclaimed his gift. The book of Michael Meyer lay beside the student; and firmly clasped in the stiffened fingers was a long tress of woman’s hair. More than this, all was mystery.

Many years after, when the memory of the student of Cologne had long been forgotten, an aged nun died in a convent not far from the city. It was Margareta, the only sister of Basil Wolgemuth the Rosicrucian.

[1] The Elle-maid, or wood-woman, is a kind of sprite, who in front appears as a beautiful damsel, but seen behind is hollow like a mask. She sits on the roadside, offering her wine-cup and her kiss; but the moment a youth has tasted either, he becomes raving mad. There are many legends of this sort current in Germany.

[2] After the death of Christian Rosencreutz, their founder, the sect of the Rosicrucians kept their doctrines secret for a hundred and twenty years. Michael Meyer, an alchemist and physician, was the first to reveal their secrets, by a book entitled “Themis Aurea, hoc est de legibus Fraternitatis Rosæ Crucis,” which he published at Cologne in 1615.

THE SOUTH BREAKER.

BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.

Just a capful of wind, and Dan shook loose the linen, and a straight shining streak with specks of foam shot after us. The mast bent like eel-grass, and our keel was half out of the water. Faith belied her name, and clung to the sides with her ten finger-nails; but as for me, I liked it.

“Take the stick, Georgie,” said Dan, suddenly, his cheeks white. “Head her up the wind. Steady. Sight the figure-head on Pearson’s loft. Here’s too much sail for a frigate.”

But before the words were well uttered, the mast doubled up and coiled like a whip-lash, there was a report like the crack of doom, and half of the thing crashed short over the bows, dragging the heavy sail in the waves.

Then there came a great laugh of thunder close above, and the black cloud dropped like a curtain round us: the squall had broken.

“Cut it off, Dan! quick!” I cried.