“And thou didst murder—”

“As I sprang forward to grasp her form, I heard his voice. That sad,
terrible tone, which speaks words of deathless knowledge—”

“The voice of Satan?” cried Paul.

“The voice of Satan. He bade me leave the maiden. `Hasten to your
cell. Ere an hour is passed, thy desires will be gratified.' I obeyed. I
waited—waited, sinking my nails into my flesh, with the mad infatuation
which possessed me in that weary hour. At last it was over. The door
of my cell opened—I uttered a cry of disappointment, as I beheld in the
doorway the form of a poor Idiot, whom I sheltered in my house, in pity
for his weakness and deformity—”

An ejaculation burst from the lips of Paul.

“The Idiot approached. `Master,' he said—not in these words, it may
be, but this was their meaning—`A dark man bade me kill the girl. It is
done, and here is what thou dost desire.' He placed in my hands a phial;
it was filled with a red liquid—”

“The blood of the murdered girl—” exclaimed Paul.

“One drop, one only, I mingled with the liquid which was concealed
within the altar of my thought. The work was done. The Water of
Life was mine. Ere the day had broken upon that terrible night, I drank—
I become young again. Yes, I, the withered old man, with the weight
of years upon my brow, I felt my blood bound with new life. The
wrinkles vanished from my brow, the film of age from my eyes—”

“And the murdered maiden—” whispered Paul, as the last rays of sunlight
shot through the gloom of the place.

“The deformed Idiot buried her. I knew not, cared not where. What
was the sacrifice of one poor life to the accomplishment of my thought?”

And his thin lips curved with scorn, while a satanic rapture shone from
his eyes.

To say that Paul Ardenheim listened to the Revelation of this unknown
man with horror, with an awe too deep for words, would but imperfectly
convey the truth. He was without the power of motion; the eyes of the
stranger enchained him with an indescribable fascination. And the ray
of sunshine, stealing into the gloom of the nook, the profound solitude, undisturbed
by a sound, only served to deepen this fascination.

“A deformed Idiot!” murmured Paul, as that confused memory began
to struggle into shape.

“The secret of immortal life was mine, and with it the power of boundless
gold! Doth it not turn thy heart, young man? Thine eye shines
with the Prophecy of a great deed, thou art formed to conquer all difficulties.
With thee, in truth, `Will the Lead become Gold, and the Sneer be
changed into a Smile.' But what are all thy conquests, when death may
claim thee any moment, even in the glow of thy best hopes? What are

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all thy plans, when the greatest of them all is sure to terminate the same
as the wish of the humblest born—at the grave?”

Paul was silent; a multitude of thoughts oppressed his soul, as the words
of the stranger penetrated his ears.

“Would immortal life aid thy plans? I know not what they are, care
not how sublime the mission which you cherish,—it may mount to Heaven,
but it is certain to be buried in your grave. Speak! have you ever
thought—not dreamed,—but thought in plain, palpable, every-day meditation,
of living for ever, even on this earth?”

“We may live upon the tongues of millions, when our bones are dust—”
cried Paul.

“A sound—emptier than air! What is the fame of Homer? Ha! ha!
There are learned men who can prove to you that Homer never lived
Or, even the English poet, Shakspeare. The millions praise him, but
what care they for his actual life? Little thought have they of his
hours of hunger, suffering, and despair; now writhing under the rich
man's contempt, now crouching at the door of that Lord, eager to gain a
crust, in exchange for his immortal thoughts. But could Shakspeare
live for ever on this earth, walking on through all ages, freed from the curse
of death, growing mightier in intellect with every year, and asserting his
own grandeur in the face of all time—what say you to this, my friend?

“One living Shakspeare were worth all the dead bones of Stratford or
Avon, multiplied by millions.”

“There is a destiny before me,” cried Paul, “which death itself cannot
wither or destroy. It is my fate, not to mingle with the mass of mankind,
and share in their feverish strife, but to guard the Deliverer of this land,
to defend him while he does right, to sacrifice him the moment he betrays
his trust.”

“Does your mission, then, assume that form?” exclaimed the unknown,
while a smile stole over his features, and he looked young again—“You look
for a Deliverer of this land, a benefactor of the human race. Is it so?
You will defend him while he does right, and sacrifice him when he betrays
his trust. It is well. But suppose the hand of Death cuts you off
ere your work is half-done!”

“Death,” exclaimed Paul, with the prophecy of a great destiny lighting
up his eyes, “Death cannot strike me, until my mission is fulfilled.”

“Let us imagine that your work is done. You behold the Deliverer
standing among the monuments of a liberated Nation. He has proved
faithful to his trust. Your work, I say, is done. You die. After your
bones are dust, this Deliverer becomes a tyrant, this land his property,
the people his slaves. How then, my young friend? Where is the end
of all your great thoughts?”

“But God is above all,” whispered Paul, as a shade of profound melancholy
came over his face.

[figure description] Page 355.[end figure description]

The shadows grew darker. The last ray of sunlight was gone
Through the vague gloom, the cold water in the rock glowed with a
faint ray. It was the image of a star, which shone from the blue heaven,
through an interval of the leaves.

Paul, with his face buried in his hands, was absorbed in thought.

“But instead of Death, let us picture life,—” he heard the whispering
voice of the unknown through the gloom. “Let us admit that the New
World is destined to become the theatre of great deeds, the land of demigods,
the domain of regenerated millions. I will even confess that such
thoughts have visited my dreams! Well—you, the guardian of the Deliverer,
do not die; your work does not end with a brief score of years.
You live; you become the Guardian, not of one man, but of a People;
your life keeps pace with their glory, and your deathless arm turns aside
the evils which menace their freedom.

“Five hundred years from this hour, you may stand upon this spot,
and behold, not a wild desert of crag and forest, but a great temple, reared
without the aid of one enslaved arm, but reared by freemen, and dedicated
to the Brotherhood of Man!”

That word struck a hidden chord in the heart of Paul.

“You are, then,” he said, gazing upon that face, which was rendered
more impressive by the twilight gloom, “a Brother of the Rosy Cross?”

“A Brother of the Rosy Cross?” echoed the unknown.

“Yes—a Brother of that vast Brotherhood, whose history, stretches
back into the daybreak of the world, and whose girdle of union encircles
the globe.”

Still the unknown murmured, with a vacant accent.

“The Rosy Cross?”

“Did you not speak of the blessed day when the Lead should become
Gold, and the Sneer be changed into a Smile?”

“It was the language of the Ancient Seers, who, like me, pursued the
great secret of eternal youth,” said the unknown, and then added in a
whisper—“The Rosy Cross! Do you speak of that order so often spoken
of in history, but never described—the Rosicrucians?”

“Even so,” whispered Paul.

“Know then that the Founder of the Order, Rosencrux himself, who
gave it name, was a Seeker after the Great Secret. Nay—'tis said that
he died in possession of the secret, and embodied it in a book, known in
olden tradition as the Book of the Rosy Cross.”

Paul felt his heart swell, while his blood leaped in his veins. Still disguising
his joy, he glanced around the covert—looked into the face of
the unknown—and said calmly:

“You are mistaken, my friend. Rosencrux was born some three thousand
years after the foundation of the Order. Therefore it could not

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have taken its name from him; as well might we suppose St. Peter to have
taken his name from the great Church erected to his memory, at Rome.”

He paused: the unknown did not reply.

“Ah,” whispered Paul, “The Book of the Rosy Cross! Could I but
obtain it—the Manuscript of Brother Anselm spoke of a day when
man might become immortal!”

And, like a new world, unclosing its shores and meadows, its woods and
mountains to the eyes of a Discoverer, widening every moment, and
revealing new beauties as it expanded on the view, that Thought dilated
before the Soul of Paul Ardenheim.

Immortal life on earth! Youth that cannot wither—Hope that cannot
die!

He rose and paced the sod, while the unknown rested his cheeks between
his hands, and gazed upon the bronzed face, which every moment
revealed new emotions.

“You drank the draught of eternal youth—” said Paul, his mind still
dwelling upon the Prophecy embraced in the Manuscript of Anselm.

“I drank, and on the instant twenty years were lifted from my frame.
For you will remember that in my search after the great secret, I had
grown prematurely old. Though but sixty years of age, I looked and felt
at least seventy—had, in thought and care, lived an hundred. No sooner
had the liquid passed my lips than I felt like a man of forty-eight years;
in the very prime of mature manhood.”

“And now—” said Paul, still pacing to and fro.

“I went abroad. With renewed youth, came the secret of boundless
gold. I arranged magnificent plans for my new Destiny—and—two
months ago, HE appeared to me again. `The liquid which thou didst
drink was mingled, in some degree, with immortal essence, but not altogether
impregnated with its spirit. The drop from the maiden's heart
had lost a portion of its power, ere it came into thy possession. Wouldst
thou live an hundred years, before another trial of thine energy is demanded?
Then rebuild once more thy furnace, and mingle with the
liquid, not one drop merely, but three drops, each taken from the heart
of a human being, who is beloved to idolatry by a Child, a Father, a Lover
or a Woman!'

“I heard and shuddered before the Awful Spirit, who appeared to me at
noonday by the bank of a dreary lake.

“`And if I do not obey?”' I faltered.

“`Then,' said the Chief of the Seven, `thy life is near its close. Thou
didst number sixty years when the liquid became thine. Sixty-two years
was the term of thy natural life. The draught, imperfect as it was, lifted
the burden of many years from thy soul, clad thee with new manhood,
yet it could not increase the number of thy years.. Thou art still subject

[figure description] Page 357.[end figure description]

to death at any moment, after the two years (counting from the time when
the draught was thine) have expired.”'

The voice of the speaker faltered, and died away at last in a husky
murmur.

Startled by the sudden pause, Paul turned abruptly, and even through
the shadow, saw the face of the unknown, frightfully agitated and bathed
in tears.

He drew nearer, examining the distorted countenance with an earnest
gaze.

“And then—” he exclaimed, bending down, as if to hear the answer,
but in reality, to gaze more closely into the face of the unknown.

There was no answer.

Paul started back with a shudder.

“He has grown twenty years older in a moment,” the thought forced
itself upon his mind.

“And, then we conversed together, concerning the great secret, the
ways of life and death, until the shadows of night came darkly over that
lake, which was gloomy at noonday.”

“Thou didst converse with the Fiend?” cried Paul, starting back as
he felt his blood chill.

“The Fiend! You still nourish these idle superstitions! Fiend!
Does not the Religion of the Church make of him, a God; second only
to the Divine Source of Life himself? Not with the Fiend, young sir, but
with the Friend. Oh, had you but seen the dread mystery of his face, or
heard the bewildering music of his voice, as he spoke of past ages,
ranging all centuries and races before my face! At last he bade me
return—”

“Return?” said Paul, as the changed face of the unknown brought
back, in more distinct shape, the memory of other days.

“Bade me return, and meet you here,” continued the unknown in a
faltering voice. “`At the Indian Spring of Wissahikon, on the last day of
the second week in June, you will behold the man who is destined to aid
you in the Good Work. He will be clad in black; he will wear the dress
of a Heidelberg student, and on his forehead a cap with a waving plume.
A face of words, and an eye full of inspiration and prophecy.' These
were the words, and thou canst aid me—”

The unknown rose, and confronted Paul in his hurried walk to and fro.

“Thou,” he continued, fixing his eyes upon the face of the Dreamer—
“Thou, and thou only. Refuse—and I am lost. In a few days I will be
dead. My secret dies with me. That secret can aid thy plans,—can
change the mortal into the deathless, and give into thy hands the destiny
of ages—”

“How shall I aid thee?” cried Paul—“I am young. Have but one

[figure description] Page 358.[end figure description]

friend in the world. I am poor—I cannot call one piece of gold my
own—”

“With thy brain,” said the unknown; “with thy arm!”

His tone was strangely elevated. He laid his hand upon the arm of
Paul, who shrunk unconsciously from the contact.

“My arm? My brain?”

“The fire is lighted in my altar. The liquid which is to impart deathless
youth, already hovers above the flame. To mature that liquid into
the immortal essence, I demand—” his voice fell, and the hand which
touched the arm of Paul, trembled violently—“three drops of blood, each
taken from the heart of a human being, beloved to idolatry by a Child, a
Father, a Lover, or a Woman—”

“You demand of me three human lives!” cried Paul, falling back,
cold and horror-stricken.

There was a pause.

The star sparkled in the spring, and through the stillness the Wissahikon's
murmur came gently up the hill.

“And in exchange for three lives, I will give you the power to confer
happiness on the whole human family.”

The voice of the unknown scarcely rose above a whisper.

“Three murders!” Paul spoke with an accent of unfeigned horror.

“Three Sacrifices offered at the altar of Destiny, in exchange for the
freedom of America,—the Brotherhood of universal man!”

“Three blows with the knife or sword upon the images of God,
enshrining immortal souls!” continued Paul, as he retreated a single step
from the unknown.

“Does not your religion teach that `without the shedding of blood there
is no remission of sins?' Does not all history confirm the sentiment,
and build it up into a Fact, immovable as the Universe itself? For these
three lives—say that they shall be the lives of the three best and purest
beings on the face of earth—you will receive the Power to sweep war,
pestilence, the inequalities of condition, the imperfections of physical
organization, and all attendant evils from the world, and thus bring on the
day of Human Brotherhood. You will acquire deathless vigor; and, with
your brain, to live, is to sway mankind, as with the voice of a God—”

Paul made no reply.

“This Deliverer whom you expect, may join hands with Washington,
the Rebel Leader, and thus continue for many years the war with the
British King.”

Still Paul did not answer.

Let me make a rude arithmetical calculation for you. War in every
age is the same. Count up the victims slain in all the wars, recorded by
history, from the days of the Patriarchs down to the present hour. Did
you ever make a computation like this? Let every man who has been

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slain in battle be symbolized, not in a rock, nor in a leaf, nor even in a
grain of sand, but in an atom of dust. Well—count up the living souls,
who have been butchered in battle, and you will discover that the surface
of the globe, to the depth of ten feet, might be covered with their dust,—
every atom of dust standing in place of a Man.”

Paul retreated another step—the words of the unknown wrung a groan
from his very heart.

“Take it to your heart, my friend. The surface of the world, the
crust of the globe, for the depth of ten feet, is made up of human souls
butchered in battle, and symbolized in atoms of dust.”

The unknown paused.

“This has been War. This will be War to the end of time.”

“You reason terribly,” groaned Paul,—“And in exchange for three
murders—”

“Do not use the word. Does the man who shoots a friend in a duel,
depriving a wife of her husband, and children of their father, call it a
murder? Does the peasant of one nation, who mounts a rampart, and
stabs the peasant of another nation, with whom he has had no quarrel, say
a word about Murder? Does the grave Judge, who to-day hangs a man
in cold blood for doing that which was a virtue yesterday, breathe a
whisper of Murder?”

“And where,” whispered Paul, his pale face agitated by a frightful
smile,—“and where shall I find the three victims?”

The unknown hesitated a moment ere he replied.

“The first may be found in the person of a Man, who is deeply beloved
by a Friend—”

Paul trembled in every limb.

“The second—” he gasped.

“The second? Imagine a woman,—a beautiful woman, for example,
who is idolized by a Lover, or Husband—”

Paul sank down, on one knee, near the brink of the spring, clasping his
hands in the very intensity of agony.

“And the third—” he asked, in a hollow voice.

“Take the most beloved object that the world ever saw,” cried the
unknown, as he drew near, and his face was faintly illumined by a star—
“Take the Father,—”

“Hold!” shrieked Paul, starting to his feet, his hands clenched, his
bosom swelling with the throbs of his heart.

“The Father,” said the unknown, in the same impassible tone, as Paul
trembled before him, “The Father whose existence is blessed by the love
of a Child—”

“No more—” and Paul, with flashing eyes, and set teeth, confronted
the unknown—“On peril of your life, no more—”

Without seeming to notice his sudden agitation, or the deadly light

[figure description] Page 360.[end figure description]

which inflamed his eyes, the unknown went on, in his calm, measured
tone:

“In a cause like this, I would regard as nothing, the life, of the Man
who is beloved by a true friend—or of the Woman who is idolized by the
Husband or Lover—or of the Father whose only joy is in the love of his
Child—”

Paul bent forward, and as his hot breath swept the cheek of the
unknown, he saw his face, and the vague memory of the Past was vague
no longer.

“It is Isaac Van Behme,” he cried—“Her Father—hers! Who has
made a compact with the Fiend, and who talks of murdering the Father,
beloved by an only child!”

And with that word he turned and fled.

Down the winding path, deep into the thickets, over the rocks where
there was most darkness, and the twilight flung its profoundest shadow,
he fled.

He did not pause as the frenzied cry of the old man came shricking
through the stillness of the wood.

He heard that cry, but the words which accompanied it, fell dull and
cold upon his ear.

He only wished to fly to hide himself from the sight of the Tempter's
face, to hide himself from the fever of his own soul; for the words of Isaac
Van Behme had summoned up again the Spectre of the Sealed Chamber,
and wrapt him once more in the flames of an unrelenting Remorse.

He fled.

And that cry came through the stillness, a cry deepened and prolonged
as by the agony of a broken heart.

“No! No! She is dead,” exclaimed Paul, as he plunged through the
thickly grown bushes. “A man who has stricken from his heart all human
ties, cannot own a Daughter's love. She sleeps in the grave.”

He sprang down the steep side of a dangerous rock. A single misplaced
step, and his limbs would have been crushed, his brains scattered
against the rocks below.

But, unconscious of any danger, save that which encircled him, as with
a girdle of flames—the Memory of the Sealed Chamber—he dashed madly
on his way.

Had a host of armed men confronted him with levelled rifles, and
warned him back, on peril of a bullet from every muzzle, he still would
have pursued his way, and rushed upon the certain death.

For he was, as we have said, unconscious of every thing in the world,
save the Remorse of his own soul.

The Remorse which had been evoked from its grave, by the words of
Isaac Van Behme, the father of the beautiful woman, who had tempted
him to cross the threshold of the Sealed Chamber.

[figure description] Page 361.[end figure description]

Plunging through the thickets, dashing from rock to rock, now sinking
ankle deep in the marshy bed of some runlet, now thrusting, with a frenzied
arm, the bending limbs aside, he soon reached the shore of the stream.

It lay there, in the bosom of the mysterious shadow, beautiful as a Bride,
within the curtains of her marriage bed.

And this marriage couch was illumined only by a solitary light—the
first star that came smiling out upon the tremulous canopy of the heavens,
whose deep blue was softened into pale gold.

He did not heed the beautiful Wissahikon, trembling so softly there, at
the welcome of the first star, but, leaping from rock to rock, he gained the
opposite shore, and, turning his face to the west, hurried along a winding
path, which now led far up into the dark woods, and suddenly came down
again in sight of the wave and the solitary star.

Nor did he heed the thousand voices of the June twilight, which, perchance
harsh and incongruous in themselves, came softened by distance,
melting like heaven's own music on the ear.

The rude hymn of the laborer, gushing from the unclosed window of
a hut, fixed upon the hill-side,—the lowing of cattle, grouped by the
stream, where the willows bend their mournful heads—the voice of little
children, now bursting in laughter, now sinking in murmurs—the lullaby
of the mother, bending over the couch of her first-born,—the chirp of a
solitary bird, swinging so lonely on the topmast branch of a tall forest
tree, with nothing between its melody and heaven, but the light of the
solitary star—these sounds, mingled and mellowed into one, made the
music of the June twilight on the Wissahikon.

Believe me, it was a music that might have pleased your ear full as
well as the trumpet note of battle, whose pauses are filled by death-groans.

For that music said, as plainly as music ever could say, that the earth
was thankful to God for the glad June day, and the Wissahikon full of
peace, when she saw her own star shining into her soul again.

Paul did not hear this music of the June twilight; the words of the old
man were ringing in his ears. He did not see the Wissahikon, smiling
beneath the ray of the first star. The Indian Spring of Wissahikon, sparkling
so tranquilly in its bowl of rock, as it mirrored the face of the old
man, whose pale brow shone in a solitary ray—this was the only sight
which he saw, as he plunged blindly onward, now in the darkness, amid
the thickly-grown brushwood, now by the water-side, beneath the ray of
the evening star.

There came a dense thicket, without one gleam to light up, even for an
instant, its impenetrable shadow. Through its darkness, a sluggish rill,
which spread among tufts of marshy grass, and made the earth slippery
and difficult to tread, sighed slowly onward, with a low, mournful
murmur.

[figure description] Page 362.[end figure description]

Paul entered this thicket, and fell on one knee; but, starting up again,
crossed the stream, and ascended a steep hill, overgrown with stunted
pines. As if guided by instinct, he never for a moment deviated from his
course. The hill ascended, there came a level space, overspread with lofty
trees, whose massy trunks were free from brushwood or foliage.

A white object glared between the intervals of these aged trees, with
the light of the evening star playing upon its ghostly outlines.

Paul beheld it, and murmured the name of Reginald, his Friend—his
Brother. Then hurrying through the trees, he beheld the white object
more distinctly; it resolved itself into distinct shape, even as it stood alone
amid the foliage and the twilight.

It was the Blasted Pine.

The bark had long ago been peeled from its huge trunk. Its rugged
limbs, stripped of every thing like life or verdure, stretched themselves
abruptly into the blue sky, above the tops of the living trees. Around its
trunk the grass was withered—it stood in a circle of dead leaves, whose
decay was contrasted with the moss and flowers beyond.

And at its foot, a bleak rock, stamped with the impress of a human foot
beside a cloven hoof, was dimly revealed in the ray of the first star.

It need not be written, that this desolate tree, standing so lonely amid
the verdure of June, was connected with many a dark tradition. The folk
of Wissahikon regarded it with superstitious awe. Brave indeed was the
man, who would dare to linger near its trunk after night-fall. A father
had been slain by his child at its foot, in the early days of the Colony—a
Pirate had been murdered there by his comrades, and his corse buried
beneath the leaves, with a portion of their ill-gotten gold—an Indian
maiden had been murdered by the hand of her white lover—these, and
other legends of similar character, gave a peculiar horror to the Blasted
Pine.

But these traditions of crime, which invested the tree with gloomy
interest, were nothing in comparison with the atmosphere of terror
which hovered over the bleak rock at its foot. The human foot and the
cloven hoof, stamped together on its surface, were the traces left by the
Enemy of Mankind, in ages long ago, when the rock itself was but a mass
of clay. Even now he was wont to haunt the spot, in bodily shape, with
the fire of eternal judgment lighting up his eyes, and the mark of unrelenting
vengeance stamped upon his blasted forehead.

Sometimes he came in the form of a beautiful woman, who, with brilliant
eyes and flowing hair, tempted the belated wanderer to barter his
immortal soul for wealth and worldly power.

These legends, various and incongruous, originated, without a doubt, in
some terrible tragedy of every-day life, which occurred near the tree, in
long distant years.

It was at the foot of this desolate tree, upon the rock stamped with the

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footprint of the Fallen Angel, that Paul Ardenheim stood, and saw the
Wissahikon gleaming from afar.

It glimmered through an opening of the forest, and over its depths, a
space of blue sky was seen, blushing with soft radiance, as the twilight
deepened into night.

“Reginald!” exclaimed Paul, as he stood with folded arms, and head
drooped on his breast—“Where art thou?—Ah, he has been here, he has
waited for me, but I have not kept my word.”

He was silent, for the memory of Reginald's friendship came to him,
in that hour of chaotic thought, beautiful as a solitary ray, shining through
the rift of a midnight cloud.

And then the silence of the spot, unbroken by the rustling of a leaf,—
the gloom, deepened by the contrast of the distant stream and the dark blue
sky—harmonized with his thoughts, and brought home to him the strange
legends of the Blasted Pine

A vague feeling—it was awe without terror—crept over him, as he
saw the human foot and the cloven hoof, impressed upon the rock on
which he stood.

“Here, a father fell by the hand of his son—”

These words, spoken in a low voice, were accompanied by a shudder.

“A father by the hand of his son—” he repeated, lingering on every
word, while his eye gleamed with a sombre fire.

“Here, the gold of the Pirate, every coin purpled with the blood of
women and children, was buried. And the miserable wretch who dug the
cavity for this gold, was murdered by his Chief, even as he stood before
this rock, with the spade in his hand. The cavity for the gold became the
grave of the still quivering corse. `Thy Ghost shall haunt the place, I
trow, and guard my earnings, until I return,' said the Pirate, as he
smoothed the earth and leaves over the warm corse and the chest of gold.
And here, an Indian maiden, who clung to her white lover's neck, and, as
she spoke of her unborn child, besought him to take her with him to his
English home, and let her dwell with him for ever,—here, the dark-haired
Indian girl was butchered by that lover's hand. It was before the days
of William Penn, when the land, now swarming with the white race, was
only trodden by a few hardy Colonists, when Philadelphia was a forest,
and the huts of Germantown first began to smile in the wilderness. And
the name of the Indian maid, who fell at the foot of this tree, with her
unborn babe throbbing in her mangled form, became the name of the
wood-hidden stream—Wissa-Hikone,—`The Lone Flower of the Spirit-Land.
'

“And here, the Fallen Angel, when this rock was clay, and these hills
were peopled by the beings of the antediluvian world, stamped the impress
of his burning feet, as he was whirled onward by the impulse of an unrelenting
vengeance.

[figure description] Page 364.[end figure description]

“'Tis said that he comes here now, at dead of night, filling the solitude
with the accents of his despair, and disclosing to the star-beam that livid
forehead, scarred by the thunderbolt. He comes, to tempt poor humanity
to its ruin—so the traditions of the rude peasants tell. As if the desolation
of his own awful soul could be cheered by the perdition of souls, inferior
to him in power and despair.

“And then he often comes in a beautiful form, armed with the glance
that maddens, and the tone that bewitches—encircled by all the fascinations
which invest a lovely woman.

“Ah—there is in truth a terrible fact embodied in this wild tradition.
Satan, clad in the gloom of his eternal anguish, can only strike terror into
the gazer's heart. But Satan, incarnate in the form of a lovely woman,
whose glance can plunge you into crime, whose low-whispering voice can
make your heart forget its God, and your hand commit the Unpardonable
Sin—”

He covered his face, for the memory of the beautiful woman, who had
tempted him to cross the threshold of the Sealed Chamber, flashed suddenly
upon his soul.

“I hear her voice again. Her dark hair, tossed by the winter breeze,
sweeps over my forehead. Her touch fills my veins with frenzy. Through
the gloom of that corridor I see her face, flushed with passion—her eyes,
radiant with the daring of a soul that believes not in God or in the Hereafter,
but in its own boundless Pride, dart their light into my soul.”

“She is before me again,” he cried, raising his agitated face, and spreading
forth his arms. “Before me now—between my sight and the blue sky—
beautiful as she was on the last night when she tempted me to despair.”

At this moment, his convulsed features were illumined by a faint and
lurid ray. Above the dark mass of the western woods, appeared a crescent
of pale gold, distinctly defined against the deep blue sky.

It was the new moon, trembling over the woods of Wissahikon, like a
coronet of light, shining above the dark hair of a beautiful woman.

Her beams invested the face of nature with a sad and sepulchral ray.
The countenance of Paul Ardenheim looked wan and ghostlike in that pale
azure radiance.

“But she is dead,” he faltered—“Her ashes rest beneath the sod—
there are wild flowers above her grave.”

Was it the rustling of a leaf that trembled gently on his ear?

That faint sound, heard for an instant and then dying without an echo,
riveted the attention of Paul Ardenheim, he knew not why.

He listened with fixed intensity, but the forest was still as a tomb.

And then once more there came a sound. It seemed like a distant voice
repeating his name. “Paul!” he heard—or imagined he heard—that
unknown voice speaking his name, in a low accent, vague and tremulous
as the murmur of a rill.

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Have you ever started from a half-waking slumber, at the sound of your
name, pronounced by a voice at once hollow and melodious?

Have you felt your flesh creep, and your heart grow cold, as you discovered
that the word was not spoken by human lips, but either by some
fancy of your half-waking meditation,—not dream—or by an actual spirit
from the other world?

Thus it was with Paul Ardenheim, as he heard—or fancied he heard—
a voice, at once hollow and melodious, repeating his name.

“Paul!”

This time Paul heard it distinctly, although the sound was low, and
faint, and far away.

Again that rustling sound, like the noise produced by a serpent trailing
over withered leaves.

Then occurred an incident which realized the supernatural legends of
the place.

Upon the rock stood or rather trembled Paul, resting one hand for support
upon the trunk of the Blasted Pine, for he was faint and scarcely able
to stand, and the cold moisture started from his forehead.

The rustling sound grew louder; again the voice pronounced his name—
deeper in emphasis, more musical in cadence—and a white object, like
a mist hovering over a stream, began to glimmer through the trees.

“It is Satan!” The thought crossed the mind of Paul, but he could not
speak. His eyesight grew dim; that white mist was whirling before his
eyes; it seemed to wrap him in its folds.

He grew cold, he trembled, he fell on one knee, and in the act of falling
raised one hand toward heaven.

A hand glided from behind the withered trunk, and then an arm, fair
and beautiful; the hand pressed the hand of Paul, and the blood bounded
in his veins.

No more damps upon the brow, no more ice in the veins, no more chill
and shuddering awe.

For a beautiful face was gazing upon him; a moist hand was pressing
his own; waves of flowing hair swept over his forehead, and the voice,
very near, this time, and melodious as a sound from Eden, spoke his name,
and the breath which framed the word, fanned his cheek.

That which he had imagined a mist, was the white robe of a beautiful
form. The sound like the noise produced by a snake trailing over withered
leaves, was the gentle tread of a small foot, that beat the earth with an
impetuous motion.

Through the intervals of long flowing hair, which, in the gloom, and by
the sepulchral light of the moon, seemed of more than midnight blackness,—
through the locks of that streaming hair, he saw the voluptuous swell
of a white bosom, rising in quick pulsations over a loosened robe, and felt
the light of eyes supernaturally radiant, flashing, burning into his soul.

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Was it a Vision—was it Reality? He knew not, he cared not, but the
vision of the white bosom, the pressure of the moist hand, the dazzling
eyes—the atmosphere of loveliness which invested the form, and intoxicated
his senses, as with a mingling of delicate perfumes—forced his blood
in impetuous currents, from his heart to his face, and fired his eyes with
more than mortal light.

“It is Satan!” he gasped, and pressed the hand to his heart, and sunk
against the pine, bewildered by a vague and inexplicable languor—“Satan,
the beautiful!”

His voice failed him: gathering the hand to his breast, he looked upward
in silent rapture.

“Paul!” the voice once more spoke his name, and pressed that name
upon his mouth, with the kiss of warm lips that burned his blood.

Before we gaze upon the sequel of this interview bewteen Paul Ardenheim
and the Principle of Evil, embodied in the form of a beautiful woman,
we must retrace our steps, and return to the other characters in our history.

And first, Jacopo.