Sidonia, the Sorceress Volume Ii Part 21

"What the devil, young man! have you an evil conscience? Can you not look any one straight in the face?"

At this the young knight lifted his eyes boldly and fixed them upon his Grace, answering haughtily--"My Lord Duke, I can look the devil himself straight in the face, if need be; but what is this comedy which you are about to play with me and this young maiden?"

This speech offended his Highness. "It was no mumming work they had in hand, but a grave and serious matter, which, as he did not understand, the magister would explain to him."

So my magister began, and demonstrated the whole _opus theurgic.u.m_; but the knight is as unbelieving as Jobst, and says--

"But what need of the angel? Can we not do the business ourselves?

My lord Duke, it is now eleven o'clock; give me permission, and by this hour to-morrow morning Sidonia shall be here in a pig-sack.

And long ago I would have done this of myself, or stabbed her with my dagger for her late evil deeds, if your Grace had not forbade me so to do at the burial of our gracious lord, Duke Philip II.

The devil himself must laugh at our cowardice, that we cannot seize an old withered hag whom a cowboy of ten years old would knock down with his left hand."

To which his Highness answered, "You are foolhardy, young man, to esteem so lightly the power of her evil spirit; for know that it is a mighty and terrible spirit, who could strangle you as easily as he has murdered others, for all your defiant speeches!

Therefore we must conquer him by other means; and for this reason I look with hope to the appearance of the angel, who will teach us, perhaps, how to remove the spell from my ill.u.s.trious race, which Sidonia's inhuman malice has laid on them, making them to perish childless off the face of the earth. If even you succeeded in seizing her, how would this help? She would revenge herself by standing there deaf and mute as a corpse, and would sooner be burned at the stake than speak one word that would remove this great calamity from our house."

Then the knight said, "He would never consent that Diliana should run the great danger of citing a spirit."

Which, when the maiden heard, she grew as red as the young knight when he first entered, and said with a grave and haughty mien--

"Sir knight, who gave you any right over my words or works? There may be other men in whom I place trust as well as you; and speak but another word of the like nature, and I will prove it to you by my acts."

Marry, that was a slap on the mouth to my young knight, who grew as red as scarlet, and cast down his eyes upon his boots, while M.

Joel began to demonstrate the magic blood-letting to them as follows--

"See here, young knight, and you, fair virgin, here are two little boxes of white ivory, of the same size and weight; and see, within each of them is suspended a little magnet, both cut from the one loadstone, and round in a circle are all the letters of the alphabet. Now, let each of you take a little box, carry it delicately, and by its help you can converse with each other though you were a hundred miles apart. This sympathy between you is established by means of the magic blood-letting. I make an incision in each of your arms, placed together in the form of a cross, then touch the knight's wound with the blood of the virgin, and the virgin's with the blood of the knight, so will your blood be mingled; and then, if one of you press the wound on the arm, the other will feel the same pressure sympathetically on the arm at the same instant, though ye be ever so far removed from one another. Now suppose that you, fair maiden, feel a pressure suddenly on the wound in your arm, you place the magnet box thereon, and the needle will point of itself, by sympathy, to the letters necessary to form a word, which word will be the same as that found by the magnet of the knight, who will likewise have the box on his arm at the same moment; thus ye can read each other's thoughts instantaneously, and this results entirely from the laws of sympathy, as described by the renowned Abbot Johannes Trithemius, and Hercules de Sunde."

To all this my knight made no answer, but seemed much disturbed.

However, the magister ordered him to retire into the next chamber and remove his doublet. _Item_, he bade the young maiden likewise to take off her robe, seeing that the sleeves were very tight. It was a blue silk bodice she had on, trimmed round the bosom with golden fringe, and a mantle of yellow silk embroidered in violets and gold. Now the maiden was angry at first with the magister for his request, but laughed afterwards, when she thought of Dorothea Stettin, and her absurdities with the doctor.

So she said, "Here, cut open my sleeve, it matters not. I have more dresses with me at my lodging." This my magister does immediately, and draws forth the beautiful arm white as a snow-flake, throws the sleeve back upon the shoulder, and places Diliana with her face turned towards the window, on a seat which his Highness, the Duke, laid for her himself, while he exclaimed earnestly, "Now, Diliana, guard thy soul well from any evil thought!"

Hereupon the poor young virgin began to weep, and said, "Ah! my Lord Duke, I have indeed need to pray for support, but I will look up to the Lord my Saviour, whose strength is made perfect in my weakness. Now the young knight may come, but let me not see him."

On this, the magister called in the young man, and sat him on the same seat with Diliana, but back to back. Then he stepped to one side, and looking at them, said, "Eh, my Lord Duke, see the beautiful James's head. That betokens good luck. Pity that the younker has no beard! Young man, you have more hair on your teeth than on your chin, I take it. [FOOTNOTE: Having hair on the teeth, means being a brave, fearless person, one who will stand up boldly for his own.] Why do you not sc.r.a.pe diligently; shall I give you a receipt?"

But the knight made no answer, only grew red for shame. Whereupon my magister left off jesting; and taking the young man's arm, laid it upon the maiden's, in the form of a cross, then opened a vein in each, murmuring some words, while the blood-stream poured down into two silver cups which were held by his Highness, the Duke.

But, woe! my knight sinks down in a dead faint off his side of the couch to the ground. Which, when Diliana heard, she springs up with her arm still bleeding, and exclaims, "The knight is dead!

Oh, save the knight!" Then the poor child wept. "Ah, what will become of me? What is this you mean to do with us?"

So the magister gave over the young knight to the care of his Highness, who held a smelling-flask to his nose, while Dr. Joel took some of his blood and poured it into Diliana's arm, after which he bound it up. And then, when the young knight began to recover, she hastened, weeping, out of the apartment, saying, "Tell the knight not to touch his arm. When there is necessity I shall press mine. Farewell, gracious Lord Duke, and help me day and night with the sixth pet.i.tion in the Lord's Prayer!" And she would not return, though the Duke called out after her, "A word, one word!" _Item_, M. Joel, "Bring a s.h.i.+ft with you that belonged to your grandmother! Nothing can be done unless you bring this with you!" She hastens on to the inn, and when the knight recovered sufficiently to follow after her, behold, there was her carriage already crossing the Oder bridge, which so afflicted him, that the tears poured from his eyes, and he cursed the whole world in his great love-agony, particularly his Grace, the magister, and the ghost of Clara. For to these three he imputed all the grievous vexations and misfortunes he endured with regard to the fair maiden.

Yet he lived in hope that she would soon press her wounded arm, and thus establish a sympathy of thought between them. So he set spurs to his horse and rode back again to his good castle of Pansin.

CHAPTER XXI.

_Of the awful and majestic appearance of the sun-angel, Och._

At last the blessed autumn arrived, and found my Ludecke still torturing and burning, and Sidonia still practising her evil sorceries upon man and beast, of which, however, it would be tiresome here to notice all the particulars. And on the 11th day of September, Jobst and his fair daughter arrived at Old Stettin, where the knight again tried to remonstrate with his Highness about the conjuration, but without any success, as we may easily suppose. Thereupon the Duke and the magister commenced a discipline of fastings. _Item_, every day they had magic baths, and this continued up to the midnight of the 22nd day, when they at last resolved to begin the great work, for the sun entered Libra that year on the 23rd day of September, at twenty minutes after two o'clock A.M.

So they all three put on garments of virgin-white linen, and Diliana drew over hers a s.h.i.+ft which had belonged to her grandmother of blessed memory, Clara von Dewitz, for she had not omitted to bring one with her, having searched for it with great diligence. Then she said to the magister, "Much do I wish to ask the angel, wherefore it is that G.o.d gives such power to Satan upon the earth? No man hath yet answered me on this point. May I dare to ask the angel?"

Hereupon he answered, "She might fearlessly do it, he was himself curious." So they conversed, and meantime placed caps on their heads, made likewise of virgin linen, with the Holy _Tetragrammaton_ [Footnote: I have observed before, this was the name, Jehovah, in the Hebrew.] bound thereon. Then the magister, taking a hazel-wand in his right hand, placed the magic circle upon his breast with the left, which circle was made of parchment, and carved all over with magic characters, and taking up his book, bade the Duke bear the vinculum of the heavenly bodies, that is, the signet of the spirit; _item_, Diliana, the vinculum of the earthly creature, as her own pure body, the blood of the white dove, of the field-mouse, incense, and swallow's feathers. Whereupon, he lastly made the sign of the cross, and led the way to the great knights' hall, which was already illuminated with magic lights of virgin wax, according to his directions.

Now as they all stepped out of the door in their white robes and high caps, shaped like the mitre of a bishop, there stood my Jobst in the corridor, purple with anguish and bathed in sweat--"He would go with them;" and when the magister put him back, saying, "Impossible," the poor knight began to sob, embraced his little daughter, "for who could tell whether he would ever see his only joy upon earth alive again? Ah, into what straits had the Duke brought him and his dear little daughter!"

However, the magister bade him be of good heart, for that no evil could happen to his fair daughter, seeing that she had again and again a.s.sured him of her pure virgin soul; but they must lose no time now, if the knight chose to stand outside he might do so. To this Jobst consented, but when the three others had entered the knights' hall, my magister turned round to bolt the door, on which the alarmed father shook the door violently--

"He would never consent to have it bolted; if it were, he would burst it in with a noise that would waken the whole castle. He was a father, and if any danger were in there, he could spring in and save his poor little worm, or die with her if need be."

So the magister consented at last not to bolt the door, but clapped it to, so that the knight could not peep through. He is not to be outwitted, however; drew off his buff doublet, took out a gimlet from his pocket, and bored a hole in the door, laid his hat upon the doublet, took his naked sword between his legs, and, resting both hands firmly on the hilt, bent down and placed his eye at the gimlet-hole, through which he could distinctly see all that pa.s.sed in the room. And the three walked up to the centre of the hall, where the magic lights were burning, and the magister unloosed the circle from his breast and spread it out upon the ground, as far as it would reach, then he drew a figure with white chalk at each of the four corners, like interlaced triangles, and taking the vinculum of the heavenly creature, or the signet of the sun-angel, which was written with the blood of a coal-black raven upon virgin parchment, out of the hand of the Duke, hung it upon a new dagger, which no man had ever used, and fixed the same in the circle towards the north--

"For," said he, "the spirit will come from the north: only watch well for the little white cloud that always precedes him, and be not alarmed at anything, for I have too often practised this conjuration to antic.i.p.ate danger now."

After all this was done, and the pan of perfume, with the vinculum of the earthly creature, had been placed in the centre, the magister spake--"In the name of G.o.d the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen!" And stepped from the north side the first into the circle, within which he kneeled down and repeated a beautiful prayer.

And the two others responded "Amen." Whereupon the wise Theurgist, the brave priest of the grand primitive old faith, rose up, made the sign of the cross at the north, and began the conjuration of the angel with a loud voice.

They were harsh and barbarous words that he uttered, which no one understood, and they lasted a good paternoster long; after which, the priest stopped and said--

"Gracious Prince, lay thy left hand upon the vinculum of the heavenly creature;--virgin, step with thy left foot upon the signet of the spirit, in the north of the circle. After the third _pause_ he must appear."

With these words he began the conjuration again; but, behold, as it was ended, a form appeared, not at the north but at the south, and glided on in a white b.l.o.o.d.y shroud, until it reached the centre of the circle. At this sight the magister was transfixed with horror, and made the sign of the cross, then said in an agitated voice--

"All good spirits praise G.o.d the Lord!"

Upon which the spirit answered--

"In eternity. Amen!"

Whilst Diliana exclaimed--

"Grandmother! grandmother! art thou indeed her spirit?"

So the spirit glided three times round the circle, with a plaintive wailing sound, then stopped before Diliana, and making the sign of the cross, said--

"Daughter, take that s.h.i.+ft of mine from off thee, it betokens misfortune. It is No. 7, and see, I have No. 6 for my b.l.o.o.d.y shroud."

Whereupon it pointed to the throat, where indeed the red number 6 was plainly discernible.

Diliana spake--

"Grandmother, how did these things come to pa.s.s?"