The Golden Dog [197]
cinder!
This was the poison of anger and revenge that would not wait for time, and braved the world's justice. With that vial La Borgia killed her guests at the fatal banquet in her palace, and Beatrice Spara in her fury destroyed the fair Milanese who had stolen from her the heart of Antonio Exili.
This terrible water was rarely used alone by the poisoners; but it formed the basis of a hundred slower potions which ambition, fear, avarice, or hypocrisy mingled with the element of time, and colored with the various hues and aspects of natural disease.
Angelique sat down and leaned towards La Corriveau, supporting her chin on the palms of her hands as she bent eagerly over the table, drinking in every word as the hot sand of the desert drinks in the water poured upon it. "What is that?" said she, pointing to a vial as white as milk and seemingly as harmless.
"That," replied La Corriveau, "is the milk of mercy. It brings on painless consumption and decay. It eats the life out of a man while the moon empties and fills once or twice. His friends say he dies of quick decline, and so he does! ha! ha!--when his enemy wills it! The strong man becomes a skeleton, and blooming maidens sink into their graves blighted and bloodless, with white lips and hearts that cease gradually to beat, men know not why. Neither saint nor sacrament can arrest the doom of the milk of mercy."
"This vial," continued she, lifting up another from the casket and replacing the first, licking her thin lips with profound satisfaction as she did so,--"this contains the acrid venom that grips the heart like the claws of a tiger, and the man drops down dead at the time appointed. Fools say he died of the visitation of God. The visitation of God!" repeated she in an accent of scorn, and the foul witch spat as she pronounced the sacred name. "Leo in his sign ripens the deadly nuts of the East, which kill when God will not kill. He who has this vial for a possession is the lord of life." She replaced it tenderly. It was a favorite vial of La Corriveau.
"This one," continued she, taking up another, "strikes with the dead palsy; and this kindles the slow, inextinguishable fires of typhus. Here is one that dissolves all the juices of the body, and the blood of a man's veins runs into a lake of dropsy. "This," taking up a green vial, "contains the quintessence of mandrakes distilled in the alembic when Scorpio rules the hour. Whoever takes this liquid"--La Corriveau shook it up lovingly--"dies of torments incurable as the foul disease of lust which it simulates and provokes."
There was one vial which contained a black liquid like oil. "It is a relic of the past," said she, "an heir-loom from the Untori, the ointers of Milan. With that oil they spread death through the doomed city, anointing its doors and thresholds with the plague until the people died."
The terrible tale of the anointers of Milan has, since the days of La Corriveau, been written in choice Italian by Manzoni, in whose wonderful book he that will may read it.
"This vial," continued the witch, "contains innumerable griefs, that wait upon the pillows of rejected and heartbroken lovers, and the wisest physician is mocked with lying appearances of disease that defy his skill and make a fool of his wisdom."
"Oh, say no more!" exclaimed Angelique, shocked and terrified. However inordinate in her desires, she was dainty in her ways. "It is like a Sabbat of witches to hear you talk, La Corriveau!" cried she, "I will have none of those foul things which you propose. My rival shall die like a lady! I will not feast like a vampire on her dead body, nor shall you. You have other vials in the casket of better hue and flavor. What is this?" continued Angelique, taking out a rose-tinted and curiously-twisted bottle sealed on the top with the mystic pentagon. "This looks prettier, and may be not less sure than the milk of mercy in its effect. What is it?"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the woman with her weirdest laugh. "Your wisdom is but folly, Angelique des Meloises! You
This was the poison of anger and revenge that would not wait for time, and braved the world's justice. With that vial La Borgia killed her guests at the fatal banquet in her palace, and Beatrice Spara in her fury destroyed the fair Milanese who had stolen from her the heart of Antonio Exili.
This terrible water was rarely used alone by the poisoners; but it formed the basis of a hundred slower potions which ambition, fear, avarice, or hypocrisy mingled with the element of time, and colored with the various hues and aspects of natural disease.
Angelique sat down and leaned towards La Corriveau, supporting her chin on the palms of her hands as she bent eagerly over the table, drinking in every word as the hot sand of the desert drinks in the water poured upon it. "What is that?" said she, pointing to a vial as white as milk and seemingly as harmless.
"That," replied La Corriveau, "is the milk of mercy. It brings on painless consumption and decay. It eats the life out of a man while the moon empties and fills once or twice. His friends say he dies of quick decline, and so he does! ha! ha!--when his enemy wills it! The strong man becomes a skeleton, and blooming maidens sink into their graves blighted and bloodless, with white lips and hearts that cease gradually to beat, men know not why. Neither saint nor sacrament can arrest the doom of the milk of mercy."
"This vial," continued she, lifting up another from the casket and replacing the first, licking her thin lips with profound satisfaction as she did so,--"this contains the acrid venom that grips the heart like the claws of a tiger, and the man drops down dead at the time appointed. Fools say he died of the visitation of God. The visitation of God!" repeated she in an accent of scorn, and the foul witch spat as she pronounced the sacred name. "Leo in his sign ripens the deadly nuts of the East, which kill when God will not kill. He who has this vial for a possession is the lord of life." She replaced it tenderly. It was a favorite vial of La Corriveau.
"This one," continued she, taking up another, "strikes with the dead palsy; and this kindles the slow, inextinguishable fires of typhus. Here is one that dissolves all the juices of the body, and the blood of a man's veins runs into a lake of dropsy. "This," taking up a green vial, "contains the quintessence of mandrakes distilled in the alembic when Scorpio rules the hour. Whoever takes this liquid"--La Corriveau shook it up lovingly--"dies of torments incurable as the foul disease of lust which it simulates and provokes."
There was one vial which contained a black liquid like oil. "It is a relic of the past," said she, "an heir-loom from the Untori, the ointers of Milan. With that oil they spread death through the doomed city, anointing its doors and thresholds with the plague until the people died."
The terrible tale of the anointers of Milan has, since the days of La Corriveau, been written in choice Italian by Manzoni, in whose wonderful book he that will may read it.
"This vial," continued the witch, "contains innumerable griefs, that wait upon the pillows of rejected and heartbroken lovers, and the wisest physician is mocked with lying appearances of disease that defy his skill and make a fool of his wisdom."
"Oh, say no more!" exclaimed Angelique, shocked and terrified. However inordinate in her desires, she was dainty in her ways. "It is like a Sabbat of witches to hear you talk, La Corriveau!" cried she, "I will have none of those foul things which you propose. My rival shall die like a lady! I will not feast like a vampire on her dead body, nor shall you. You have other vials in the casket of better hue and flavor. What is this?" continued Angelique, taking out a rose-tinted and curiously-twisted bottle sealed on the top with the mystic pentagon. "This looks prettier, and may be not less sure than the milk of mercy in its effect. What is it?"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the woman with her weirdest laugh. "Your wisdom is but folly, Angelique des Meloises! You