“In the name of Heaven,” shrieked Tring, “what is this?”
The alchemist spoke in a low voice as one might speak in a church: “The Great Tarnov Crystal.”
“The Great Tarnov Crystal!” repeated Tring. “The Great Tarnov Crystal! . . . Why, that is the stone for which alchemists and workers of magic have been searching these hundreds of years. The Great Tarnov Crystal!” He shouted it almost in high excitement. “Why, man, we have here the greatest scientific treasure of all ages.” He began to skip about in transports as the possibilities of the treasure’s possession leaped into his mind. “And now I understand,” he continued. “Indeed you have been under the hand of a devil if you have been gazing into that thing. Why, do you know that this stone can send a man into a trance in which all manner of truths will be divulged? Do you know that we can learn now for a certainty the very secret that we have been seeking?” And going close to the stone, he gazed into its depths as a thirsty man might gaze into a well of water.
There was this curious property of the Great Tarnov Crystal, and perhaps of all great crystals in the world’s history, that it never presented the same vista twice to the man who looked within its depths. Now this may have been due to many things, to the fact that the lights surrounding it were never twice the same, and also perhaps to this, that the crystal had the strange property of reflecting back to the observer the very thoughts that were tucked away deeply in his head. What drew men to the Tarnov Crystal in the beginning was, of course, its beauty, its color, its light, its constantly changing vistas, and besides these, there was that indefinable fascination that all such stones have. Diamonds, as well, possess this fascinating power to a high degree though the diamond is, of course, a small stone, and not large enough to hold the concentrated focus of two eyes for a very long time; the crystal by reason of its size possesses this quality according to its fineness.
The Tarnov Crystal was the finest crystal known to the magicians of the Middle Ages. And although magic was frowned upon by scholars and men of science such as astronomers and alchemists, still there was no distinct line between science and magic, with the result that many of these men found themselves practicing magic when they had intended only to make scientific investigations. It was even so with Pan Kreutz, who ordinarily had but little use for magic or the Black Arts in any form—until now he had come entirely under the domination of the student Tring whose enthusiasm had carried him away.
“I tell you that I have had enough,” the alchemist repeated now. “I have perjured my soul to obtain this stone and I am ready to return it to its rightful owners. This stone is a thing of wickedness and blood and it has a woeful history, as old perhaps as the world itself.”
“Return it!” shouted Tring. “Return it! Why, Pan Kreutz, listen to my reasoning. I know not how you have come by this thing—I do not ask at present—but you would be scarce the man I took you for did you not use it for the purpose that we need it. After that we may return it—if indeed it has been stolen—or if it sticks within your conscience to retain it now, then perhaps I——”
“Nay, nay, Johann Tring,” exclaimed the alchemist emphatically, “to its rightful owners it shall go. Here I have kept the secret to myself knowing that the knowledge would tempt you—and indeed you would not have known now unless the secret had burned so heavily in my brain.”
“As you will,” said Tring, humoring the alchemist with his concession, though the purpose in his eyes was of different intent, “but first let us learn from it at once how to transmute baser metals into gold; this I am sure we shall do, then we can be independent of these smirking dogs who rule the universities.”
“Then let our experiments be brief,” said the alchemist. “I have looked too long upon this glittering thing.”
“You should have told me before.” Tring again adopted the attitude of a kindly adviser.
“But, in truth,” went on the alchemist, “I doubt if we can wring that secret from the crystal. I have now an opinion, though perhaps a wrong one, that the crystal only gives us back our own thoughts. We may not call upon it as upon some friendly spirit to tell us what we do not know—we may not wish and have our wishes fulfilled. I begin to doubt it all.” Here he rose to his feet and began to stride about the floor. “It is already having a bad influence upon me. I cannot see straightly in the world of men as once I did. When I have looked into it for minutes and minutes my thoughts come back to me crookedly, and while I have taken much interest in such contemplation, I find that there is too deadly a fascination in gazing into those crystal depths. I have, as I said, found much of interest, and were I alone in the world, I might even pursue these studies to the very limits of human thought, but I sometimes feel as if my very soul were getting caught in the rays of that bright thing.”
“Might I ask,” inquired Tring, unable to restrain his curiosity longer, “how the crystal came into your possession?”
“It was like this”—the alchemist willingly relieved his mind of the secret that he had been bearing alone. “That night when the thieves came here some time ago I entertained them for a bit with some Greek fire and niter.”
“Yes?”
“It seems that the crystal was at that time in the possession of the family in the rooms below ours.”
“What! The trumpeter and the boy who bear the name Kovalski?”
“Yes, though that is not their name. They are Charnetskis and lived formerly in the Ukraine.”
“I see—and the thieves? Tartars and Cossacks who followed them perhaps from the Dnieper country?”
“Yes, the crystal was actually in the hands of the leader when I surprised him with an explosive powder. In the surprise and pain occasioned by my attack he dropped the crystal—the powder blazed about his face and burned his hair—the crystal rolled upon the floor and I pounced upon it.”
“But how had it come into the possession of the Charnetski family?” asked Tring eagerly.
“It was in this fashion. When the Tartars devastated the Polish country in the thirteenth century the village that stood where now is Tarnov was inhabited by the Charnetskis, among others, of course. It was Andrew Charnetski of that day who performed heroic feats in the defense of the city against the Tartars, and to him was presented for safe-keeping the great crystal which has come to be known as the Great Tarnov Crystal. It was the chief ornament of the old town, and even kings had come there to see it. For besides its qualities as a thing of rare value and beauty, it had those reputed properties you have mentioned: that a man who looked into it might there read the secrets of the past and the future; that he might find out the intimate thoughts of other men and women; that he might learn to overcome the elements, to fly through the air like a bird, to walk invisibly, to transmute base metals into gold. In those times no man was allowed to look more than three minutes upon it, for even in three minutes a man might find his head swimming and curious thoughts coming into his brain.”
“But how did the Charnetskis save it from the Tartars?”
“They fled with it to the Carpathian Mountains and remained there until Batu the Tartar was forced to return to the land of the Golden Horde. Then as it passed from eldest son to eldest son, it went to an ancestor of this Andrew Charnetski who settled in the Ukraine after the country had been put under Polish dominion in the days of Vladislas Jagiello. Of course the name Andrew Charnetski is by no means an uncommon one throughout Poland, so little did I think when this man came into the humble lodgings below that he belonged to the Charnetski family which had possession of the Tarnov Crystal.”
“Did he tell you his story?”
“Yes. On the day after the crystal disappeared, he made a confidant of me as one already acquainted with his name and a part of his history.”
“But you had heard of the crystal before?”
“What alchemist has not?” he answered. “I knew that it was brought in early days to Egypt from somewhere in the East, and there it stood in a temple for many centuries. When the Romans conquered Egypt, the crystal was taken to Rome. During the years when the Romans were colonizing the lands around the Black Sea a certain Roman officer fell in love with a woman of Transylvania, and being sent there with a legion, stole for her this crystal from a temple in Rome. When his crime was discovered the Emperor sent a detachment of soldiers to bring him back, but he fled to the district which is now Halicz, but which went then under the Roman name Galicia. There he lived with his wife under an assumed name, in a remote village later known as Tarnov, and there the crystal remained up to the time that it passed into the hands of the Charnetskis. Around it grew up a sect of sorcerers, magicians, practicers of the Black Art, astrologers, and alchemists—some sincere, others mere charlatans.”
“Surely there have been many attempts to steal the crystal from the Charnetskis?”
“Only one. It seems that men, even alchemists and astrologers, lost for a time the thread of its history, and it was only when a runaway servant of Andrew Charnetski spread the news in the East that it was in his possession that an attempt was made to find it. That attempt, as you know, cost Pan Andrew his house and property in the Ukraine. Who it is that is inciting these robbers I know not, but I have no doubt that the leader of the band was in the pay of some person in high authority.”
“Would the robbers taken prisoners say nothing?”
“No, they did not know all, I believe. And like most Tartars they would rather die than betray a secret. Torture could not wring it out of them.”
“Does Pan Andrew suspect that you have the crystal?”
“Pan Andrew considers me his friend. And at heart I am ashamed and sick that I have not restored it before now.”
“But think. If it had not been for you, the Cossack would have escaped with the crystal and it would have been lost forever.”
“I know it. Yet that is no justification for me. I stole it if a thief ever stole anything. When I first saw it that night on the floor of Pan Andrew’s lodging I would have exchanged my chance of heaven for its possession. When I had obtained it, and the attention of the crowd in the court below was turned to the robbers and to the man escaping over the roofs, I brought it here to the loft, under my coat.”
“You did well,” said Tring, the wildest impulses of excitement leaping within him. “Look—look at the crystal. It glows and dances and quivers like a thing alive, ready to tell its secrets. Quick, draw your chair near to it as you used to draw your chair to me when I was the master of your trances. Gaze deeply into it”—he fixed the hesitating alchemist with his eyes as a serpent might fix a helpless bird—“and now let us try the greatest experiment of all.”
The alchemist pulled his chair close to the crystal as he was bid, and fixed his eyes upon it. Tring watched him closely from a distance. One minute—two minutes—three—the alchemist still looked at the crystal and Tring regarded him as a cat might regard a mouse that it was playing with. Four minutes—five. The alchemist still sat motionless, but his posture in the chair was changing slightly. His arms and neck seemed to be stiffening, his face was taking on the look of an entirely different person; his breath came regularly but in longer and deeper draughts than was his wont. His eyes became wide open and staring.
“Listen,” Tring’s tone was sharp, commanding.
“I am listening,” the reply came instantly.
Tring trembled with excitement. Not only had the alchemist gone into this trance more quickly than he, Tring, had ever been able to send him, but he was still responsive to the student who had feared lest the agency of the crystal might render Kreutz unresponsive to him. But Tring had sent him into trances so many times that now his mind seemed to answer the student’s bidding automatically.
“Tell me what you see.”
“I can see a huge hall like an alchemist’s room, filled with braziers and glass instruments. In these instruments fluids of fire are rushing to and fro and near them are great copper kettles out of which are coming puffs of steam.”
“It is the devil’s workshop that you are in,” said Tring sharply. “Do you see any men at work?”
There was silence a moment as the alchemist’s consciousness went roaming through the vast room.
“There is no one here,” he said at length.
“Are there any manuscripts there?” demanded Tring.
Silence again. Then—“Yes, on the wall hangs a parchment.”
“Take it down.”
“It burns my hands.”
“Pay no heed to that. Your reward will be greater than your pains.”
“It is in my hands.”
Tring glanced involuntarily at the hands of the man in the trance. Curiously enough they seemed to be turning red as if exposed to a great heat. “Now read what the parchment says.”
The alchemist replied slowly as if reading, and he spoke in the Latin tongue, “Here May One Find Things Which Be Neither Good Nor Evil But Which Are Sought of All Men.”
“Good! Now unroll the parchment.”
There was another silence. At length the alchemist said, “I have found somewhat.”
“Read!”
“Nay, I may not. It is in symbols.”
“Then write.” Tring deftly slipped a piece of board across his knees and put into his fingers a kind of pen made of wood and a feather; this he had dipped into a pot of ink as thick as paint, and he guided it in the alchemist’s hand until it rested upon a piece of fresh white parchment that he laid upon the board.
The alchemist wrote as follows:
“What else?”
The alchemist wrote:
“Quod primum incredibile, non continuo falsum est; crebro siquidem faciem mendacii veritas retinet.”
“No. That’s nothing. Do you find other formulæ?”
The alchemist looked closely and recited as if reading:
“Thus saith Olimpiodorus of Thebes, Osthanes the Egyptian, Psellos of Byzantium, and Giabr of Arabia: heat the fires upon thy brazier and place thereon a vessel full of yellow sulphur; this thou shalt melt until it gives forth a spirit; when the spirit is departed pour slowly upon the sulphur that quicksilver which has its birth in the planet Mercury. In but the twinkling of an eye this will be reduced from its natural state unto a state that is of the earth, black, without life, dead. Then take this lifeless substance and put it in a closed vessel; heat it and it will suddenly take on life again and become a brilliant red.”
“Write it, write it,” exclaimed Tring. The alchemist wrote. “And is there more?”
“Much. It saith here that this is the secret of the Seven Golden Chapters, of the Emerald Table, and the Pimander.Natura naturam superat; deinde vero natura naturae congaudet; tandem natura naturam continet.”
“No more of that. That is vile philosophy,” shouted Tring. “Find and write the completion of the Philosopher’s Stone, by which we may convert brass into gold.”
The alchemist continued:
“Zosimus the Theban directs that this is the true method of turning brass into gold: To the above heated solution of sulphur and mercury add that pure niter which men find in the heart of India. Into this cast brass and it will in a moment change to gold.”
“Quick, to work. Light the braziers and bring out sulphur, quicksilver, and brass,” commanded Tring. “Have you any of this Indian niter?”
“I have—a small packet on the third shelf of the closet,” answered the alchemist. Tring rushed to get it and set all the materials ready for the experiment. Truly and sincerely did he believe that the alchemist had hit upon the solution of the much desired process of changing base metals into gold, and his own lack of knowledge in the realm of the science of alchemy was responsible for the ignorance with which he ordered the alchemist to compound one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man. The alchemist, on his part, was but acting under the hypnotic suggestion of Tring, and had no opportunity to interpose his normal-self sense between the student’s intention and its execution. Indeed the information he had during the trance came from his own fund of learning, although the suggestion of adding niter to the heated compound was but a fancy of a mind grown either tired or weak.
As the student hurried about arranging materials for the experiment Kreutz sang a Latin hymn which extols the practice of alchemy and the alchemist:
Inexhaustium fert thesaurumQui de virgis fecit aurumGemmas de lapidibus.
Inexhaustium fert thesaurumQui de virgis fecit aurumGemmas de lapidibus.
Inexhaustium fert thesaurumQui de virgis fecit aurumGemmas de lapidibus.
Inexhaustium fert thesaurum
Qui de virgis fecit aurum
Gemmas de lapidibus.
“Compound the Philosopher’s Stone,” commanded Tring.
The alchemist, still in the trance, arose, and leaned over the brazier. Something flaky and white and inflammable was tucked close to the bottom to act as kindling, and a coal brought from a farther brazier and laid upon this. It turned all black for a minute, then sizzled into an intense heat and ignited the brazier’s contents. The flame was at first yellow and creeping, then it changed to blue and leaping. Kreutz put a vessel filled with sulphur into the flames, and sure enough in a moment the spirit of the sulphur arose in fumes that filled the room.
Both leaned over the brazier eagerly as the alchemist shook mercury over the melted sulphur. As the parchment had decreed, so the reaction followed; in a short time the glittering mercury had mingled with the melted sulphur and became an ugly black substance. Tring handed to Kreutz another vessel which was closed at the top. Kreutz shook the hot material from the first vessel into the second and put the latter back on the brazier. In all his motions he acted mechanically as if he were but working out the will of another. He opened this second vessel after a few seconds and, sure enough, the black substance was becoming a lively red.
“The niter; the niter,” exclaimed Tring eagerly at his elbow.
The alchemist took the package from his hands and tossed it into the substance now seething with heat. As he did so, as if obeying some unconscious instinct of self-preservation, he leaped back into the middle of the room and drew Tring with him. The exclamation of anger on Tring’s lips was cut in half, for at that instant the loft of the house rocked in a terrific explosion!
“Quick, seize the crystal and descend!” screamed Tring, who was already speeding through the doorway, frantically wiping sparks of fire from his clothing.
The exploding substances had sent their flames into the dry roof and walls of the house, and fire was leaping through them merrily. Everything in the room was beginning to blaze, and in two minutes more it would have been impossible to leave. The alchemist, still in a daze, took the crystal as he had been commanded, and made for the stairway. The stone gleamed in his hands like a million diamonds, rubies, and emeralds where the flames fell upon it, and he clutched it with all the strength of his right hand as he clung to the stair rail with his left, now swaying out over the court like a drunken man, now regaining his hold and descending another stair. But the student had been more nimble, and by the time that the alchemist had descended to the third floor of the house, Johann was down the stairs and through the gate, calling with all his might for the watch to notify the water master that the house above him was in flames. No watch was in sight and so he sought one at full speed, and while he was searching, Pan Kreutz had reached the open door and disappeared in the night, the Great Tarnov Crystal hidden under the folds of his black gown.
But behind him the flames had eaten through the roof of his house and had leaped to the adjoining house. In a few minutes they had bounded clear across an open court near by, and had laid hold of one of the pensions of the university. The wind then veering swept the flames in a seething mass in the direction of the great Rynek, and in less than fifteen minutes after the flight of the two men from the loft of the building, the university section of Krakow was in the grip of a terrible conflagration that threatened to devour the whole city.
Sinceearliest times Krakow was divided into four sections—the Castle Quarter, the Potters’ Quarter, the Butchers’ Quarter, and the Slavkov. At the head of each of these districts was a quartermaster who was responsible for everything that went on in his district, the fighting of fires being one of his chief concerns. Therefore the watchman from one of the streets that lay in the districts threatened by the fire went pounding at the gate of the quartermaster’s house, shouting “Fire” at the top of his lungs in order to send the servants flying to the master. In a short time the quartermaster was up and dressed, and had sent summons to the water master who had charge of the town reservoir and aqueducts.
The bell meanwhile began to sound clamorously from the tower of the Church of Our Lady Mary, for the watchman there had caught sight of the flames. Cries of “fire” were now being echoed from all sections of the city, and in the red glare which was beginning to illumine all the grim Gothic buildings and churches, a very tumult of confusion was arising. The water master had already set his machinery in motion and drummers were pounding away at their drums in all the city streets in order to awaken the merchants and their apprentices upon whom fell the burden of fighting the flames. All the town guilds were assembling, companies of servants from the palaces were filling buckets of water and taking positions on the roofs of their own houses, and all citizens were busily getting down from the wall, hooks and axes and pails such as the law required them to keep for such emergencies.
A fire of any size in Krakow was a serious thing in those days, for there were hundreds upon hundreds of wooden and part-wooden houses clustered together in the thickly populated streets. In the section about the old university the majority of dwellings were very ancient, dry, and cobwebbed everywhere, and a single spark upon their roofs was enough to turn them in exceedingly rapid fashion into belching furnaces of flame and smoke. As the fire raced through these streets, the inhabitants poured out in panic-stricken confusion; each building was literally teeming with life, and the whole scene, viewed from above, would have resembled a huge ant hill suddenly destroyed or burned out by a careful gardener.
Women and children came out rushing and shrieking. Black-robed students dashed through the streets with manuscripts and parchments in their hands; others came carrying glass tubes or astrolabes or metal dividers; frantic domestics ran here and there with no definite refuge in view save only to escape the heat and terror of the ever-spreading flames. The streets were rapidly filling with furniture, clothing, beds, and personal possessions of every variety, hurled out of casements by desperate owners—and some of this material in the streets had already caught fire from the sparks which were descending like rain in a spring thunderstorm, making the lot of the fugitives even more unendurable. Inside some of the courts those who had preserved presence of mind were combating the fire with much vigor; tubs of water and pails were being pressed into action, and burning walls were already being hauled down.
The water master had marshaled a line of water carts which extended from the burning buildings to the aqueduct; these water carts were usually drawn by horses, and some of them were on this night, but there had been difficulty in getting enough horses quickly, and men and boys were harnessed into the shafts. At the aqueduct men were busy filling the carts with water; as each cart was filled it moved on some little distance to the fire, and there being emptied, swung about into another street and returned to the aqueduct for another filling. The nearest section of the aqueduct was about an eighth of a mile from the point where the fire started.
Forces of men armed with hooks and axes were sent out by the water master to surround the district where the flames were reaching, for the rapid spread of the fire had made it apparent at an early stage that very little could be saved in the university area. These men were under orders to demolish any building that seemed to offer a chance for a further spread of the blaze, whether the fire had already reached it or not. One detachment formed a line in front of the Church of the Franciscans, another on St. Ann’s Street, and another on Bracka. All these detachments were forced to retreat, however, as the fire ate its way out of the district where it had started. The Rynek was the scene of a turbulent mob which had struggled from the burning section in the Street of the Pigeons, and every open space was quickly filled with rescued goods. Two families had even taken possession of the platform where the town pillory stood and children were being put to sleep there by mothers thankful to find a place of rest.
Amid all this uproar, an elderly woman, a boy, a girl, and a dog were fighting their way through the Street of the Pigeons amidst the débris of furniture and personal belongings that had been thrown from windows. They had all been sleeping when the fire broke out, and not having been roused until the flames were all about them, had been able to rescue nothing but themselves and the clothes which they wore. The boy was Joseph, the girl, Elzbietka, and the woman the wife of Pan Andrew. Wolf, cut loose by Joseph, was the most terror-stricken of the group, but he followed after them, submissive and obedient, not knowing exactly what he was expected to do.
Each of them was busy with separate thoughts as they fought their way through the disorder. Joseph was ever figuring the quickest route out of the burning district, and this was no easy task, since the fire was playing so many tricks. It was not marching ahead in a straight wall of flame but was whirling about, leaping here and there, skipping this house and fastening upon that, advancing, retreating, spreading to the flanks, all with terrific speed and unexpected vivacity. Sometimes the two roofs just above the heads of the fugitives would shoot up in flames—passing these with great peril, they would find that the fire was now behind them and rejoice at the breath of air that fell upon them; then suddenly without warning the roof of a building just ahead would belch forth smoke and flame as if the fire demon were working invisibly, and this new peril must be passed.
At length they reached the place where the Street of the Pigeons is cut by a cross lane, known to-day as Wislna Street, but this lane was already full of smoking beams and fallen timbers; escape that way was impossible. There was nothing to do but to push on through the Street of the Pigeons where it curves to meet Bracka.
Elzbietka was wondering most of all about her uncle; there had been no answer to their hurried calls when they left the doomed house, and, besides, the loft was glowing in red and purple flames of such intensity that no person alive could have been there at that time. Joseph’s mother was thinking of the father, wondering if he had left his post at the church to come to his family’s aid, and wondering, too, if they could reach him at the tower before he began to suffer too much from anxiety concerning them.
The houses were a little higher in this portion of the street and there was therefore more cool air, in the lower reaches. The fire was still whirling along here but was not taking hold quite so fast as it had done down below, and consequently the fugitives made better progress. The only difficulty was the ever-increasing crowd that now swept in from three directions, making it hard for the three to keep together. Finally they locked arms and literally fought their way through the crowd. All about them the scenes were heart-rending, men and women fleeing with but few possessions from the only homes they had ever known, children lost in the mad scramble who set up shrill cries and tried to keep their feet as the crowd pushed ahead. Sick persons were brought into that raging torrent of humanity, carried on the shoulders of their relatives or perhaps stretched upon cots. Here was one old man who sat astride a young fellow’s neck like Anchises on the back of Æneas fleeing from the burning city of Ilium.
At length they stood where the fire had not reached, much more fortunate in that than many other people that night. Joseph waited only until they caught their breath, though he, too, felt like throwing himself down upon the ground and resting, and then started forward again through Bracka in the direction of the Rynek. In his heart he hoped that when he had settled Elzbietka and his mother in the tower where his father was on duty, he might come back with the apprentices and help fight the fire, for there is that in a youth which draws him into such fighting. As they went along Bracka he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs from the direction of the Wawel.
“Wait,” he said, drawing the women back on a footpath, “here come soldiers from the castle to preserve order.”
He spoke truly, for the next moment a great troop of cavalry wearing mail armor and carrying spears rode into Bracka Street from below and began to deploy in lines that marked the district immediately threatened by fire. A few minutes later foot soldiers and artisans began to appear and, joining with the watch, pulled down buildings at the edge of the fire. Siege machinery was also drawn up into Bracka and the buildings just outside the reach of the fire began to crumble under its pounding.
“This will prevent the spread of the flames,” thought Joseph.
They went ahead again toward the church, but while they were still in the Rynek they saw a company of soldiers dragging forward a prisoner whom they had taken in the burning district.
“A thief,” said the boy.
“Bless us,” exclaimed the mother. “It is not possible that men could be so cruel as to steal from poor folk driven mad with terror.”
As the company came near and the torches fell upon the face of the prisoner, Joseph let out a cry of amazement.
“Why, mother, that is Peter of the Button Face, the leader of the men that attacked our house. That is the man who met us on the first day we were in Krakow. He it was who tried to make us prisoners in the church tower. . . . See how he struggles—but they are holding him tight for all that. And mother, it is not the city watch that has taken him. It is the King’s own guard. Do you not see the royal crown on their helmets, do you not notice the richness of their clothing? I wonder what it can be about.”
Joseph spoke truly. Peter had at last fallen into the hands of guardians of the law, and this time it was the King’s own men that held him. It was evident, too, from the way they held him that they thought they had a prize. They did not stop at the Town House where offenders against municipal law were kept but marched straight along Castle Street in the direction of the royal castle on Wawel Hill.
At the church they found Pan Andrew in a very sweat of anxiety and fear lest something of harm had befallen them. He caressed them all one after another and then said to Joseph earnestly:
“I want you to remain here and sound the Heynals for the rest of the night. There is much work to be done in the quarter where the fire is, and every man’s hand is needed to stay the flames. . . . I see that Pan Kreutz is not with you. He stayed, too, I presume, to work with the rest of the men?”
“Indeed, father, I know not. We called many times, but his loft was a mass of flames like to a roaring furnace, when we were driven down the stairs.”
“I must see, then, if I can find aught of him. He has been on a previous occasion our very great benefactor and it would but suit us ill not to seek at least his body in the ruins. Should he not have perished, as I pray God he has not, then we can offer him shelter here until such time as he can find a roof again.”
But when Joseph told him of the capture of Peter he looked very serious and said that if such people were in the city then he had better not leave his wife and the young people. On second thought, however, it seemed right for him to go, for the city was now lighted by flames and it would be easy to summon aid if they were attacked.
And so he, with thousands of other valiant men, fought the fire in Krakow that night. They formed in a ring about the conflagration and tore down all the buildings across which it might run. The Collegium Minus was the last building to catch on the side toward the city wall, and then the fighters tore down the houses near the old Jew Gate and stopped the fire there. The flames swept around the other buildings of the university, destroyed one or two, though not all, and were finally halted on the second street above St. Ann’s. Sweeping in the other direction, the fire had early in its progress destroyed the monastery and adjoining houses of the Church of the Franciscans, and had crossed over to Castle Street where it burned flat a whole line of buildings.
On these and the other edges of the district a wide belt of destruction was created by the fighters. This belt, the tradesmen, running to and fro with water wagons filled constantly at the aqueduct, wet down and soaked until it was almost a water wall. So furiously had they worked that the main progress of the fire was checked in seven or eight hours, and although certain buildings and ruins smoked and even blazed for several days afterward, yet the great danger passed when this well-soaked belt of destruction was completed.
When Pan Andrew returned to the tower in the full blaze of the morning sun, nearly one third of the city of Krakow lay in ruins. Fortunately it was not the better portion of the city, and many of the old wooden-built hovels had been there since before the days of Kazimir the Great; that monarch had successfully converted about one half the city of Krakow from wood to stone more than one hundred years before; had he not done so it is probable that the fire of 1462 might have utterly consumed it.
Elzbietka and Joseph’s mother were asleep on the trumpeter’s bed clasped in each other’s arms. Joseph sat outside the compartment with the hourglass before him on a beam, gazing out over the smoking ruins of the university quarter.
“Is the city saved?” was the first question he asked his father.
“It is not now in danger,” answered Pan Andrew. “But there are many homeless souls in the city this day.”
“Did you see the alchemist?”
“I did not. He has disappeared as if he had flown away on the clouds of smoke that covered the city.”
“Poor Elzbietka,” exclaimed Joseph.
The girl inside the compartment moaned slightly as her name was spoken, although she was deep in a heavy slumber.
“I wonder if he was caught in the loft?” mused Pan Andrew. “It was in the very center of the burned district.”
The answer to his question came with sudden unexpectedness. There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs and Jan Kanty’s head appeared from below. The scholar was leading another man by the arm, a man who had been in the fire—his charred clothes and blackened face showed it; around his shoulders and falling to his waist was all that remained of what had once been a black robe. He kept his hands beneath this robe.
“Pan Andrew,” whispered Jan Kanty softly, “I have found in the street—Pan Kreutz.” And, checking the other’s startled exclamation, he explained, “He is not in his right senses. Something has affected his brain. But he has here something of interest to us all.”
Pan Andrew turned toward Kreutz—he never would have recognized him had not Jan Kanty identified him; Joseph felt his eyes glued with strange eagerness upon the eerie, blackened figure and the mysterious folded hands beneath the robe; it had been a scholar’s robe once.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the alchemist suddenly, “up to heaven goes everything in fire and yet no gold is found anywhere. Johann Tring!” he looked about anxiously. “Where is Johann Tring? He answers me not. He is lost in the flames, the flames that came so red and purple when niter mixed with charcoal. Oho, Johann Tring! Come, Johann Tring, and see what I have carried this whole long night for you.”
Throwing back the black robe, he held up the object that he had been concealing there, and at the same moment the sun, streaming in through the little window on the east side, fell full upon that object; fell upon it and made it sparkle like the myriad of dew diamonds shining upon a morning lawn new-mowed; sparkled like the thousand chandeliers in the King’s great hall in the palace on the Wawel Hill; sparkled like the rubies and emeralds that gleam in the Queen’s crown; sparkled like the wondrous thing that it was, all touched by the red rays of the morning sun—the Great Tarnov Crystal!
“Now whence has that come?” shouted Pan Andrew so loudly that the sleepers in the next room awoke. “Where by all that is good and holy in the world have you found the gem which has been in my family for years and years, which all my ancestors and I have sworn to guard forever and to surrender to no person except to the King of Poland? How has it come into your hands after it was stolen from me, and my heart was nearly broken? Did you get it perhaps from that ruffian who has been captured by the King’s guards? Did you find it perhaps in the ruins of the town? Did you perchance——” The truth suddenly flashed upon him and he was speechless.
“It is an accursed thing,” cried out the alchemist suddenly, reeling in Jan Kanty’s arms as if he were gone faint. “There is blood upon it, and fire! It has lured princes and kings to their destruction! It has made men’s brains mad with lust for want of it! It has caused good men to steal, and evil men to kill. I will have none of it. I will have none of it, I say.” He was growing almost boisterous, yet there was something in this attack of madness that had much of reason and determination in it. “I will have no more of it,” he repeated, “and no more of Johann Tring.”
At that he fell fainting to the floor.
Jan Kanty raised him, and Elzbietka who had run out from the trumpeter’s room rushed to him and kissed and fondled his blackened hands.
Pan Andrew picked up the Great Tarnov Crystal and held it at arm’s length with a smile.
“Now may peace come upon us all,” he said, “for I may fulfill the oath that my family has taken and deliver this to the King. While the secret of its hiding place remained with me I might keep the crystal as long as I chose, but now that the secret is out, there is but one place where it may be guarded safely and that is in the palace of the King. Pan Kreutz is right. This jewel has already done too much harm in the world.”
“Then you may rid yourself of it at once,” broke in Jan Kanty. “The King returned to Krakow two days ago, and we may find him at the castle this very morning.”
Ofall the wonders that the capital city of Poland possessed Joseph knew of none that stirred his imagination more than did this royal castle of the kings upon the Wawel. Impregnable through many sieges, its great rock base had stood, brick and stone heaped high above it in a great mass of towers, turrets, and walls. At its very heart, high above the winding Vistula and the town, stood a strangely built round tower enclosed and protected by the palace wings, where men in prehistoric times worshiped the old nature gods of the Slavs; a place of rest and seclusion where on rare occasions, when townsfolk might visit the castle, Joseph had stood thinking of things that had been in the old days.
He knew well the legend of Krakus, the hero of the dark ages, who slew a dragon that had once made this hill his habitation. There was a cave, so Joseph heard, that ran from the fortress underground beneath the river, a secret exit in time of siege; here had been the dragon’s lair, until the hero overcame him, and from that day men made the Wawel a home, from which might be seen climbing into the air, spires and belfries. All this Joseph had seen; he had fed his fancies upon every object that graced the bleak, majestic rock, and yet there remained one glory that had never yet met his eyes. That glory was Poland’s King.
But this morning after the fire, when the little company set out from the Church of Our Lady Mary toward the Wawel Hill, Joseph felt his heart leaping strangely in his breast at the thought of the adventure that was to be theirs. To see the King, to have audience before him—it made the blood sing in his ears and tingle in his finger tips.
They took the alchemist with them, on Jan Kanty’s advice, although he still seemed like a man in a dream.
“I found him wandering through the fire-swept streets early this morning,” said the scholar. “He had been running hither and thither all night long in the most dangerous parts of the city, and how he has escaped death from falling timbers and burning coals is more than I know. . . . The man has something on his mind, something that troubles him hugely, and with it all he seems to be acting like one in a spell.”
“Do you think it well to bring him with us?” asked Pan Andrew, who had doubted from the beginning that there would be any benefit from the man’s presence.
“Yes—I have a curious notion,” answered the scholar, “that he may be able to help us. We have much to explain to the King, and the man’s presence will make our story more credible. And who knows, perhaps the alchemist himself may get help—he needs some light thrown into that brain of his, and since he is harmless, it will do no damage to take him.”
Pan Kreutz’s hands and face had been washed and dried, and most of the fire grime had left him; the scholar’s robe was useless, however, and Pan Andrew hung akontuszor long coat about his shoulders.
Joseph was there with the three men; Wolf had been left behind sleeping upon the floor of the high tower room. Joseph’s mother and Elzbietka were under the protection of the day watchman who relieved Pan Andrew at dawn. It was necessary for Pan Andrew and Jan Kanty to assist the alchemist in walking at times when his feet would shuffle curiously like those of a man walking in his sleep, but he plodded along bravely, not yet realizing quite clearly what was happening about him yet confident that the two men near him were his friends and were leading him to some good place.
From Castle Street they turned at length up the long slope leading to the castle on the Wawel. Behind them lay street after street of desolation, of smoking ruins, of masses of wood still flaming; amidst these ruins men were still working valorously tearing down charred beams and hurling in tons and tons of water from the water wagons, which were now all drawn by horses. One side of Castle Street had suffered badly, the houses on the Street of the Pigeons were entirely destroyed, St. Ann’s Street had but few buildings left, while much devastation had been done along the Street of the Bakers, the Street of the Goldsmiths, and the Street of the Jews and Broad Street.
Jan Kanty’s company was challenged twice by guards on the way to the palace, but when the soldiers recognized the good father, they were at once passed along without question. It was another proof to Joseph of the esteem in which the man was held; in himself, however, there was not the least indication of pride and ostentation, he was as simple as a child in most matters affecting worldly things, and yet his name was as magic even in the court of the King. At length they all stood in the little passageway on the Wawel through which one passes to the palace, and here the guard, with spear raised in salute to the scholar, bade the company wait until he went to see if an audience might be had.
The soldier came back quickly. “The King,” he said gravely, “will grant any request that may be made by Father Jan Kanty; he only begs that the company wait a few minutes until a present audience is finished.”
They waited perhaps fifteen minutes until an important-looking functionary in a blue robe came to announce that King Kazimir Jagiello would receive Jan Kanty and his friends.
Out into a wide court they went, following the courtier in blue, up a marble staircase to the left and along a balcony. Then suddenly a door was flung back and they were in the presence of the King.
To Joseph, remembering it afterward, it all seemed like a dream, it was all so quiet and without ceremony. King Kazimir had chosen to receive them in a small antechamber in which he often met certain persons who were to be received without the usual ceremony of presentation, and Jan Kanty was one of the privileged ones that he met in such fashion.
Joseph and his father dropped upon one knee in front of the King. He was sitting in a high-backed chair without a canopy, which bore at its highest peak a royal crown; this crown was just above the monarch’s head so that at first it seemed as if it were actually upon his head and he were crowned. He wore a huge purple robe which fell clear to the tops of his soft leather sandals; it had a great collar embroidered with silks of many colors and in many patterns; a heavy gold chain held the folds of the collar together, and beneath the collar folds could be seen a rich vest embroidered with gold. The sleeves of the robe were immense and hung down far below his knees as he sat there; the robe itself was fringed with heavy fur. His head covering was a simple cap of the same color as the robe, flat, soft, and turned up a trifle at each side.
The King himself seemed the picture of comfort and informality; not so his guards. On each side of him stood a guard in plate armor, with stiff metal pieces over the arms, stomach, thighs, and legs. At the waist they wore short, straight swords ready for action at a second’s notice. These two men were as motionless as statues. About the room stood knights in different kinds of armor, some in light chain with long skirtlike coats, some in mail jackets that resembled checkerboards in pattern and extended only from shoulder to thigh, some in heavy armor and metal shoes armed with spurs.
In front of the King were two pages carrying scepters. They, too, stood motionless as he spoke.
“What is this?” he asked, as Jan Kanty came forward to kiss his hand, which ceremony the King did not allow. “Have we here some poor city dwellers driven forth by last night’s fire?”
“Yea,” answered Jan Kanty, “that is true, though we come not on business of that sort. We are here upon some matter that may be of deeper interest than one would suppose. These are Pan Andrew and his son Joseph, by family name Charnetski, dwellers of the Ukraine driven forth by violence and come here to have audience with your Majesty.”
“So,” said the King with quick interest. “Stand, if you please, and tell me the circumstances of your trouble for it greatly interests me at this present time. I have much news from the Ukraine, and not so pleasant, either. How came you by your misfortunes?”
“If your Majesty please,” began Pan Andrew, rising and taking out the crystal from beneath his coat, “I wish to deliver to your Highness the Great Tarnov Crystal.”
The sunlight touched it as he held it up, and the room and its splendid company were suddenly agleam with wavy flecks of light, red and orange and blue and yellow; there was a dazzling brilliance to it that struck each eye with almost the force of lightning. The King literally sprang forward to take the wondrous thing from Pan Andrew’s hands.
“What a marvel! What a thing of beauty!” he exclaimed, while a very murmur of astonishment ran through the circle of his attendants. “Where in the world is to be found any jewel one-half so miraculous as this?”
“I know not,” answered Pan Andrew, “but it has been in the keeping of my family for many years.”
“Then why do you deliver it up to me?” demanded the King. “It is worth a quarter at least of all the treasures in this palace.”
“That I will explain. My family has held it in trust these two hundred years and more, and we have sworn to guard it until the secret of its hiding place became known, and then, since there would be great danger following such a discovery, to deliver it into the hands of the King.”
“Then its hiding place has been discovered? But tell me first the reason for concealing such a wondrous stone.”
“That, your Majesty, is a long story, which if your Majesty so desires I will deliver shortly in writing, but I may say briefly that when Tarnov fell before the Tartars these many years ago the citizens entrusted this crystal to a member of my family. He took oath to guard it zealously, with his life if need be, lest it fall into the hands of people who might abuse its powers, for its beauty hides strange properties which are allied to magic and sorcery and the Black Arts, and it has been at times a curse, a thing of mystery and a source of evil. When Tarnov was rebuilt new dwellers came there and the crystal remained in our family.”
“How did the secret become known?”
“I had a servant, a Tartar. He was with me for many years. It was my custom to conceal the crystal in the rind of a pumpkin, and many a time this man must have seen me scraping out the inside of a pumpkin and rubbing the shell with oils and gum in order to preserve it. Because he was a simple fellow, I took no pains at any time to conceal my task. But though lacking in wit, it seems that the man was not lacking in curiosity. And his curiosity, I now believe, led him to spy upon me, and eventually he discovered the use to which I put the preserved pumpkin rind. He left me about a year ago, and it was only a few months later that my house was attacked. I am sure that he sold his information to some Tartar chieftain.”
“Could he suspect the value of the crystal?”
“That I do not know. I do know, however, that legends concerning this crystal are everywhere to be found among the Tartars and Cossacks. When they are children they are told tales of it, and all of them grow up in the hope that some day they may find it.”
“Thou thing of beauty,” said the King, gazing at the crystal, “could thou but speak and tell all that men have done to possess thee. Thou cruel, marvelous thing.”
Pan Andrew fell upon his knees before the King. “Take this crystal and guard it, your Majesty,” he exclaimed with great feeling, the tears already streaming down his face. “It has already done enough harm in the world. In my own family it has been nothing but a burden, a source of endless anxiety and suffering. My father’s fathers, years and years ago, even dug a passageway in the earth, through which one might escape with it secretly in case of an attack, and so cleverly was this passage concealed that for years no one but the master of the family has known of its existence.
“In spite of the beauty of this jewel I hate it from the very bottom of my heart and I hope that I may never look upon it again. For every ray of light that it reflects, thousands of men have fought and died for its possession, for every color that lurks within its depths miseries and sufferings have swept over whole nations. I have guarded it faithfully but no more shall I guard it. I am fulfilled of my oath.”
The King looked into the crystal fixedly, and then suddenly shuddered as if he saw something fearful there.
“I shall be before many years an old man,” went on Pan Andrew, in a pleading tone. “My home in the Ukraine exists no more. My house is burnt, my fields are laid waste, and all because I had this jewel in my possession and men envied me.”
He then went on to tell the story of the escape from the Ukraine, the pursuit, the attempted robbery of his house, the attack on the tower, and the persistency and repeated appearances of Peter of the Button Face whom he had heard of in the Ukraine as Bogdan the Terrible.
“I do not know,” he said, “who it might be that sent this man to dog my steps, but my son Joseph has told me that your guards have taken this same Peter a prisoner in the streets, and that he is a captive of your men. Let me confront him here and perhaps I may learn who it was that drove me from the Ukraine.”
While he was speaking the King gradually took his thoughts from off the crystal, and when he mentioned the name Peter, the King grew restless with excitement.
“I have the man,” he exclaimed, “and he shall be brought here. My spies in the Ukraine reported recently that a great treachery was afoot and that this man Peter or Bogdan was in Poland for the purpose of consummating it. His description was given to my guards and a reward was offered. Last night he was seen in the district where the fire was raging and my guards brought him in. I shall have him here directly.”
Two spearmen brought him in; as he walked, the chains which hung from his arms and legs clanked on the floor. He did not deign at first to glance at Pan Andrew or any of his party, but simply looked at the King and folded his arms defiantly and with spirit. Whereat the two guards forced him to his knees.
His air of indifference disappeared, however, when his eyes fell upon the Tarnov Crystal which the King had set down upon the floor before him. He glanced left and right and favored the trumpeter and the alchemist with a look of bitter hatred.
“You are accused of treason against the Commonwealth of Poland,” said the King immediately. “Have you any plea to make?”
“Who accuses me?”
“The governors of the Ukraine,” answered the King. “And moreover you are charged with other crimes, among them that of persecuting this citizen here before me—you have destroyed his home and fields, and attacked him while he was on duty in the church tower. The penalty for any one of these is death.”
Peter did not lose his self-assurance for a moment. He realized more quickly than another might that his plea of innocence would soon be broken down. He fell back then quickly upon another means of obtaining his end.
“I would buy my freedom,” he asserted.
“What have you that is worth while to me?” asked the King.
“Much. You are threatened in the Ukraine.”
The King thought for some minutes. It rather irked him to give this man his life since he had already done such damage, but on the other hand he might be able to obtain some really valuable information. The whole Ukraine was in some kind of uproar, and even his most trusted spies had not been able to get to the bottom of it. The usual method of obtaining information from prisoners in those days was torture, and in the field of battle it was employed widely, but often in cases of such desperate men as Peter torture led them to confess wildly but seldom with truth. The Cossack was ordinarily a man of his word, and Peter had enough Cossack blood in him to make him pass for a Cossack in the Ukraine and in the East.
“It pleases me to be merciful to-day,” replied the King. “There has been too much suffering at my very gates to make me wish for more. Your death would in no way pay for your crimes, and it is possible that your information might be of service to the commonwealth. I could wrest this information from you by torture, but I prefer an easier way. . . . Now, mark,” he cautioned the Cossack, “I know certain facts concerning what you have to tell, I have information from my own men in the Ukraine, and if you utter so much as one word of a falsehood to me, I will have you taken out and hanged by the neck from the tower gate. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” answered Peter, turning just a trifle pale at the threat. He was a bold man, he was a desperate man—otherwise he would not have ventured back into Krakow after having been defeated there twice—and he had no fear of death in any form, so long as he was free and able to fight. But now his knees smote together at the thought of hanging and he resolved that he would keep close to the truth. After all, the whole affair was finished for him. The crystal was in the hands of the King and he was not likely to part with it easily.
“One thing,” he said in a low tone, “one thing, your Majesty, I beg, and that is that you will let none talk of what I say. For if it were known that I had spoken the truth, my life would not be worth—that,” he snapped his fingers. “I have your promise, your Majesty.”
“You have.”
“Then hear what I have to say. I am Bogdan, known in the Ukraine as the Terrible. Two years ago in March I was summoned to Moscow by one in authority who said that a powerful lord had something to say to me. Now having an open mind always for new activities, I went, although our people have but little love for Muscovites. And there I was taken to one Ivan.”
The King interrupted. “You mean——”
“I mean Ivan himself, chief power among the Muscovites, son of that blind one. He has the ambition to unite all lands thereabouts under himself—as Emperor, men say.”
The King bit his lips and his eyes flashed. “This they have told me,” he exclaimed in an angry voice. “I only wanted the confirmation of it that you have given me. Ivan—Ivan—that one who makes friendly proffers to one’s face and strikes in treachery when the back is turned.” He strode up and down the room for a moment and then turned to the captive again. His tone was as calm as it had been in the beginning. “Proceed,” he ordered.
“In this he has partially succeeded, but his ambitions run higher, and he dreams of establishing his power over the people outside the borders, the Ruthenians and Lithuanians. Knowing them to be willingly under Polish domain, however, even the city of Kiev which fell beneath Tartar rule, he wishes instead to strike a blow at the Poles in the Ukraine. Some one advised that he loose the Tartars against the Poles, and an ambassador was even sent to find out what would induce the Khan to send his warriors to fight the Poles. The answer that he made was a curious one.”
“And that was——” asked the King.
“This was his answer. He would lead his Tartars against the Poles in the Ukraine on one condition, and that was that Ivan should deliver into his hands the Great Tarnov Crystal.”
At this the whole company started, chief among them Pan Andrew, for none of them had suspected that such great importance was even now attached to the stone.
“How did he know of the crystal?” asked the King.
“Every one in the east knows of the Great Tarnov Crystal,” answered Bogdan. “Every worker of magic, every astrologer, every chief, every prince, is desirous of possessing this treasure. For it is said that in addition to being a jewel of great value it has this quality also, that one may look into it and there read of the future—one may also find there secrets of great worth, one may see the faces of men long since in their graves. There are many legends and stories of it, too, and since the days when it disappeared from Tarnov, when the Tartars conquered Western lands, there has been search after search to find it.”
The King thought for a few seconds. “Then the Khan of the Tartars knew that he was asking Ivan for an impossibility when he demanded the crystal? Does that mean that he meant to refuse to go against the Poles?”
“Please—your Majesty—it was no such thing,” Bogdan stated emphatically. “A short time ago a servant who had left the services of this man here,” he pointed to Pan Andrew, “went to the land of the Tartars and there spread the report about, that the crystal was to be had for the taking, that it was hidden in a country house in the Ukraine. You may be sure that this reached the ears of the Khan, whose passion for curious jewels is almost a madness, and when I, going from Ivan to Tartary, learned this, then Ivan promised the Khan that he would get him the crystal if it could be gotten.”
“You were the go-between?”
Bogdan bowed.
“And Ivan sent you to get it from Pan Andrew?”
Bogdan bowed, though not quite so low.
Fire leaped into the King’s eyes. “Dog that you are,” he said. “Less than beast in all things that Christians believe; for this you must destroy a man’s house and ruin his fields, yes, and threaten his life, too, if it would serve your purpose. . . . God knows, my kingly duties lie heavily upon me. . . . All that I seek in this, my commonwealth, is peace, peace with my neighbors and happiness for my people. And yet Poland is ever insulted to the point where nothing but war is possible. It is not enough that enemies on the north and west threaten, there must be plots against our happiness on the south and east. Oh, Poland, Poland, when will the day come that thy sons and daughters may enjoy the tranquillity that God has designed for all people? . . . As to you,” he turned again to Bogdan, “what further have you to say?”
“Only that I have failed,” answered Bogdan miserably. “And only that I know that I shall go free, for there was never yet Jagiello who did not keep his word. Though had it not been for this creature here”—he pointed to the alchemist, who from the rear of the room had been watching the scene through half-shut eyes—“I should have had the crystal long ago.”