The eye of the venerable accuser, regarded the face of the speaker with a sad and touching solemnity; but at this moment, the little girl who had before accompanied him, was conducted into the foreground by the Archbishop. She bore in her hand a sarbacane,—seemingly of brass, long and narrow like a wand, and crowned, at the extremity, by a small globe or bulb of the same material. The length of this instrument was fully six feet or more. The old man took it into his hands, and having unscrewed a part of the bulb—which seemed a mere sheathing of brass, he discovered beneath it another globe, similar, in shape and size, to that which had been removed; but the inner bulb was manufactured of glass, of a whiteness equally chrystallic and beautiful. He then took from beneath his robes a little box of ebony, which he unlocked, and from which he produced a head-piece, the face of which, instead of being hard steel or iron, was of glass also, very thin, and quite transparent, through which every muscle and motion of the features might be seen with the greatest distinctness. To the thoughtless vulgar, such a shield seemed only a mockery of that more solid furniture of metal, which, in those days, thoroughly encased the warrior for battle. The inference, accordingly, was very general, that if by any possibility, the accuser succeeded in the combat, he would be indebted solely to supernatural agency for his good fortune. His wand of brass, with its chrystal bulb—his glassy vizor and helmet,—were only regarded as designed to divert the scrutiny from the more secret agency which he employed.

“I am ready,” said the accuser.

“Hast thou prayed?” demanded his enemy in a mocking fashion. “If thou hast not, get thee to thy knees quickly, and renounce the devil whom thou servest. Verily, but little time is left thee.”

“I have prayed and confessed to the Holy Father. Do thou likewise, and make thyself humble and contrite. Repent thee,—for, of a truth, my lord, if the King forbid not this combat, thou art doomed this day, to go to judgment.”

The heart of the accused was hardened within him. He replied with a hiss of defiance and contempt to this last appeal; at the same moment he declared himself in readiness also. They were then withdrawn from the presence for a brief space, and were severally approached by their friends and attendants. The Archbishop, and the King’s favorite went aside with the accuser, and when the latter returned to the arena, in order to the combat, the Archbishop led away with him the little girl, upon whom, at parting, the old man bestowed many caresses, accompanied by many tears. The spectators were all very much moved by this tenderness, and now began to regard him as one set apart for sacrifice—doomed to be separated forever, and by a violent death, from the object of his affections. And when the opponents stood, at length, confronting each other—with none to go between—awaiting only the word for the combat À l’outrance;—when they regarded the strong soldier-like frame, and the warlike bearing of the accused—beheld the ease with which he strode the lists, and displayed his weapon;—and contrasted this image of dire necessity and war, with the feeble, though erect form of his venerable accuser,—habited in vestments like a priest or woman—with the simple unmeaning wand within his grasp, and the frail mask of brittle chrystal upon his face—a loud murmur of regret and commisseration prevailed among the multitude. But this murmur was soon quieted by the cry of the master of the tourney—

“Laissez aller!”

Then followed a painful silence.

“Now, sorcerer,” cried the knight, raising his glittering sword, and advancing as deliberately and with the confident manner of the executioner. The aged accuser simply presented the bulbous extremity of his wand, and before the accused could smite, the frail glass was shivered against the bars of his enemy’s mouth-piece. At this moment the knight was seen slightly to recoil; but it was for a moment only; in the next instant he darted forward, and with a fierce cry, seemed about to strike. The old man, in the meantime, had suffered his wand to fall upon the ground. He made no further effort—offered no show of fear or fly, but with arms folded, seemed in resignation to await the death-stroke of his enemy. But while the weapon of the man of war was in air, and seemingly about to descend, he was seen to pause, while his form suddenly became rigid. A quick and awful shudder seemed to pass through his whole frame. Thus, for a second, he stood paralyzed, and then a thin, mistlike vapor, which might be called smoke, was seen to creep out from various parts of his frame, followed by a thin but oily liquor, that now appeared oozing through all the crevices of his armor. His arm dropped nervelessly by his side; the sword fell from the incapable grasp of his gauntleted hands, and in an inconceivable fraction of time, he himself with all his bulk, sunk down upon the earth—falling, not at length, prostrate, either backward or forward, but in a heap, even upon the spot which he had occupied when standing; and as if every bone had suddenly been withdrawn which had sustained them, the several parts of his armor became detached, and rolled away—his helmet, his gorget, his cuirass, his greaves, his gloves—disclosing beneath a dark, discolored mass—a mere jellied substance, in which bones and muscles were already decomposed and resolved into something less than flesh. Above this heap might be seen a still bright and shining eye, which, for a single second, seemed to retain consciousness and life, as if the soul of the immortal being had lingered in this beautiful and perfect orb, reluctant to the last. But in a moment it, too, had disappeared—all the brightness swallowed up and stifled in the little cloud of vapor which now trembled, heaving up from the mass which but a moment before had been a breathing, a burning, an exulting spirit. A cold horror overspread the field, followed by a husky and convulsive cry, as from a drowning multitude. The people gazed upon each other and upon the awful heap in unspeakable terror. It was annihilation which had taken place before them. Awful was the silence that prevailed for several minutes; a vacant consternation freezing up the very souls of the spectators. But the reaction was tremendous.

“Seize upon the sorcerer! Tear him in pieces!” was the cry from a thousand voices. This was followed by a wild rush, like that of an incoming sea struggling to overwhelm the headlands. The barriers were broken down, the cries swelled into a very tempest, and the mammoth multitude rolled onward, with souls on fire, eyes glaring with tiger fury, and hands outstretched, clutching spasmodically at their victim. Their course had but one centre, where the old man calmly stood. There he kept his immovable station, calm, firm, subdued, but stately. How will he avert his fate—how stay this ocean of souls, resolute to overwhelm him. I trembled—I gasped with doubt and apprehension. But I was spared the further contemplation of horrors which I could no longer bear to witness, by the very intensity of the interest which my imagination had conceived in the subject. There is a point beyond which the mortal nature cannot endure. I had reached that point, and was relieved. I awakened, and started into living consciousness, my face covered with clammy dews, my hair upright and wet, my whole frame agitated with the terrors which were due wholly to the imagination.

It would be easy, perhaps, to account for such a dream, assuming, as we did at the outset, that the mental faculties never know abeyance—that the thought never sleeps. Any speculation in regard to the transition periods in English history, would give the requisite material. From a survey of the powers of physical manhood to those rival and superior powers which follow from the birth of art and science, the step is natural enough, and the imagination might well delight itself by putting them in contrast and opposition. But we have no space left for further discussion.