CHAPTER XXIII.HEY-DIDDLE-DIDDLE!
Wecame to the Cells; where Ambrose took me into a cell just within the passage.
I was startled, and stood perfectly astonished on the threshold; for the walls were all carved out in figures of beautiful sculpture. The subject was religious, depicting the martyrdoms of Christian saints. But oh profanity! All prominent among those august visages, was the sculptured head of Doctor Copicus!
Ambrose observed my admiration well pleased, and seemed to forget his gloom.
“You wrought these works?” asked I.
“Ay,” said he, “I wrought them. ’Tis my talent, my delight ... I love beauty overmuch ... overmuch,” he added heavily. “It obscures religion in me. I am taken with the shape and outward form.... And yet that shape and outward form is inherent in the Soul. And yet I know, thanks to the Doctor, I know and understand, that all is of the Soul.”
“What mean you by theSoul?” asked I.
“The Soul,” said he, “is the All-pervading, All-constituting, All-loving power and substance, in whom all souls do live and move and have their being.”
“Thus spake the Doctor,” said I scoffing.
But Ambrose answered nothing.
“A seër, a prophet!” quoth I. “A just man and a merciful! How many thousands of poor mariners, pray, hath this righteous preacher slain?”
Ambrose smote his forehead. “Have a care!” said he, “What did I tell you? If the Doctor heard you——”
“Oh, but you tempt me!” cried I, “You tempt me! What! Would you have me to believe that this pirate chief, this murderer——”
I broke off; for the door of the cell was thrown violently open, and there entered, bursting in upon us, the little lad whom we had seen near the volcan.
“Tirralirra!” cried he in his shrill voice, and stood stock and silent before us. I looked at Ambrose, who stared on the lad.
“Well, Dominic?” said he in a quavering voice.
The lad fell to capering about the cell. His eyes glowed like lamps; and, on a sudden, he cried:
“The mighty from their seats! The mighty from their seats! Death is a pendulum! Death is a swing! Up—down! See—saw! It pulls down the mighty from their seats, and exalteth the humble and meek! The clown is up and the king down, hey-diddle-diddle for king and clown!”
And, stepping to Ambrose, he put a slip of paper in his hands.
Ambrose looked on it.
“After twenty days,” said he quietly. “After twenty days I die.”
I looked upon the parchment; thereon, in fierce scrawled characters, was writ:
Post Viginti Dies.
“Why, what is this?” said I.
“The mandate of the Doctor. Because I fetched not his sulphur,” said Ambrose.
“Tirralirra!” cried the lad, and, with a hop and a skip, sped from the cell.
Ambrose sat silent, his haggard gaze bent upon the floor; and I also was silent. At length he spoke.
“Nay, but I am weary,” said he, “weary of it all.... Over the rocks, over the flinty rocks, have lain all the courses of my life.... Always uneasy!... Miserable!... Tormented! tormented! But, when the Doctor revealed to me the hidden truth, then came joy unto my soul. No longer tormented with those dark and hideous thoughts, no longer plunged in deep-down gulfs of terror and despair.
“Let him, then, kill my body, since he hath given life unto my soul! Ay, let him kill me, for I am a-weary! A-weary!”