“Ah, peace!” cried Theirry, and he put his hand to his brow growing damp with terror.
The other was silent a while, but Theirry could hear his quick breathing rising from the grass. At length he spoke in a quiet voice.
“I desire vast wealth, huge power. I would see nations at my footstool . . . ah! . . . but I have a boundless ambition . . . ” He sat up, suddenly and softly, and laid his hand on Theirr’s arm. “If they . . . the evil ones . . . offered you that, would you not take it?”
Theirry shuddered.
“You would! you would!” cried Dirk. “And pay your soul for it — gladly.”
The scholar made no answer, but reclined motionless, gazing over the human lights in the valley to the stars beyond them; Dirk continued —
“See what a liking I have for you that I tell you this — that I give you the secret of my power to come . . . ”
“’Tis my secret also,” answered Theirry hastily. “I have done enough to bring the everlasting wrath of the Church upon me.”
“The Church,” repeated Dirk musingly; he was of a daring that knew not the word fear, and at this moment his thoughts put into words would have made his companion shudder indeed.
Gradually, by ones and twos, the lights in the town were extinguished and the valley was in darkness.
Theirry folded up his cloak as a pillow for his head and lay down in the scented grass; as he fell into a half sleep the great sweetness of the place was present to his mind, torturing him.
He knew by the pictures he had seen that Paradise was like this, remote and infinitely peaceful. Meadows and valleys spreading beneath a tranquil sky . . . he knew it was desirable and that he longed for it, yet he must meddle with matters that repelled him, even as they drew him, with their horror.
He fell into heavy dreams, moaning in his sleep.
Dirk rose from beside him and walked up and down in the dark; the dew was falling, his head uncovered; he stooped, felt for his mantle, found it and wrapped it about him, pacing to and fro with calm eyes defying the dark.
Then finally he lay down under the pines and slept, to awake suddenly and find himself in a sitting posture.
The dawn was breaking, the landscape lay in mists of purple under a green sky, pellucid and pale as water; the pines shot up against it black, clear cut, and whispering still in their upper branches.
Dirk rose and tiptoed across the wet grass to Theirry, looking at him asleep for the second time.
The scholar lay motionless, with his head flung hack on his violet cloak; Dirk looked down at the beautiful sleeping face with a wild and terrible expression on his own.
Like wine poured into a cup, light began to fill the valley and the hollows in the hills; faint mystic clouds gathered and spread over the horizon. Dirk shudderingly drew his mantle closer; Theirry sighed and woke.
Dirk gave him a distracted glance and turned away so rapidly and softly that Theirry, with the ugly shapes of dreams still riding his brain, cried out —“Is that you, Dirk?” and sprang to his feet. Dirk stayed his steps half-way to the pines. “What is the matter?” he asked in an odd voice. Theirry pushed the hair away from his forehead. “I know not — nothing.”
The air seemed suddenly to become colder; the hills that on all sides bounded their vision rose up stark from grey mists; an indescribable tension made itself felt, like a pause in stillness.
Dirk stepped back to Theirry and caught his arm; they stood motionless, in an attitude of expectancy.
A roll of thunder pealed from the brightening sky and faded slowly into silence; they were looking along the hills with straining eyes.
On the furthest peak appeared a gigantic black horseman outlined against the ghostly light; he carried a banner in his hand; it was the colour of blood and the colour of night; for a moment he sat his horse, motionless, facing towards the east; then the low thunder pealed again; he raised the banner, shook it above his head, and galloped down the hillside.
Before he reached the valley he had disappeared, and at that instant the sun rose above the horizon and sparkled across the country.
Theirry hid his face in his sleeve and trembled terribly; but Dirk gazed over his bent head with undaunted eyes.
Chapter 6
The Lady
Through the blunt-pointed arches that gave on to the sunny gardens a thin stream of students issued from the lecture-room.
Behind the castellated roof of the university the mountains appeared, snow cold against the sun-lit sky; at the bottom of the gently sloping garden lay the town of Basle with the broad blue Rhine flowing between the glittering houses.
The students came in twos and threes and little groups, laughing together over the doctor who had been lecturing them, over some point in their studies that had roused their amusement, or merely because it was a relief after being confined for hours in the dark hall.
The long straight robes, dark shades of purple, blue and violet, fluttered behind them in the summer wind as they gradually dispersed to right and left among the trees.
Theirry, walking with two others, looked about him for Dirk, who had not attended the lecture. “We are going up the river,” said one of his companions. “We have a fair sailing boat — it will be pleasant, by Ovid!”
“Will you come?” asked the other.
Theirry shook his head.
“Nay, I cannot.”
They both laughed.
“See how he is given to meditation! He will be a great man, certes!
“I have a matter that commands my time,” said Theirry.
“Dear lover of rhetoric! Hark to him — he will even sit in the shade and muse!”
“’Tis cooler,” smiled Theirry.
They came to a pathway bordered with laurels and dark glossy plants, and from a seat amid them Dirk rose at their approach.
He was distinguished from the others by the greater richness of his dress; his robe, very voluminous and heavy, was of brown silk; he wore a gold chain twisted round his flat black cap, and his shirt was of fine lawn, laced and embroidered.
The two students doffed their hats in half-mocking recognition of the exquisite air of aloofness that was his habitual manner.
He gave them a steady look out of half-closed eyes.
“Hast learnt much today?” he asked.
“Aristotle is not comprehended in an afternoon,” answered the student, smiling. “And I was at the back — Master Joris of Thuringia yawned and yawned, and fell off his stool asleep! The Doctor was bitter!”
“It was amusing,” said the other. “Yet he was not asleep, but swooned from the heat. Mass! but it was hot! Where were you?”
“Improving my Latin in the library. This after-noon I have put the story of Tereus and Philomena into the vulgar tongue.”
“Give you good even.” The two linked arms. “We know a joyful inn up the river.” As they disappeared Dirk turned sharply to Theirry.
“Did they ask your company?”
“Yea.”
Dirk frowned.
“You should have gone.
“I had no mind to it. They are foolish.”
“Ay,