Page:The London Magazine, volume 8 (July–December 1823).djvu/142

 counsellor had himself thought it necessary to exhort him to courage, which at present he felt greatly shaken. However, he had no choice. As he was enjoined therefore, with the last stroke of twelve he set on fire the wood which lay ready split upon the hearth, and threw the dice into the flames, with a loud laughter that echoed frightfully from the empty hall and stair-cases. Confused, and half-stifled by the smoke which accompanied the roaring flames, he stood still for a few minutes, when suddenly all the surrounding objects seemed changed, and he found himself transported to his father’s house. His father was lying on his death-bed just as he had actually beheld him. He had upon his lips the very same expression of supplication and anguish with which he had at that time striven to address him. Once again he stretched out his arms in love and pity to his son; and once again he seemed to expire in the act.

Schroll was agitated by the picture, which called up and re-animated in his memory, with the power of a mighty tormentor, all his honourable plans and prospects from that innocent period of his life. At this moment the dice cracked for the first time; and Schroll turned his face towards the flames. A second time the smoke stifled the light in order to reveal a second picture. He saw himself on the day before the scene of the sand-hill sitting in his dungeon. The clergyman was with him. From the expression of his countenance he appeared to be just saying—“Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.” Rudolph thought of the disposition in which he then was—of the hopes which the clergyman had raised in him—and of the feeling which he then had that he was still worthy to be re-united to his father, or had become worthy by bitter penitence. The next fracture of the die disturbed the scene—but to substitute one that was not at all more consolatory. For now appeared a den of thieves, in which the unhappy widow of Weber was cursing her children, who—left without support, without counsel, without protection, had taken to evil courses. In the back ground stood the bleeding father of these ruined children, one hand stretched out towards Schroll with a menacing gesture, and the other lifted towards heaven with a record of impeachment against him.

At the third splitting of the dice, out of the bosom of the smoke arose the figure of his murdered wife, who seemed to chase him from one corner of the room to another, until at length she came and took a seat at the fire-place; by the side of which, as Rudolph now observed with horror, his buried father, and the unhappy Weber, had stretched themselves; and they carried on together a low and noiseless whispering and moaning that agitated him with a mysterious horror.

After long and hideous visions, Rudolph beheld the flames grow weaker and weaker. He approached. The figures that stood round about held up their hands in a threatening attitude. A moment later, and the time was gone for ever; and Rudolph, as his false friend had asserted, was a lost man. With the courage of despair he plunged through the midst of the threatening figures, and snatched at the glowing dice—which were no sooner touched than they split asunder, with a dreadful sound, before which the apparitions vanished in a body.

The evil counsellor appeared on this occasion in the dress of a grave-digger,and asked with a snorting sound—“What would’st thou from me?”

“I would remind you of your promise,” answered Schroll, stepping back with awe: “your dice have lost their power.”

“Through whose fault?”

Rudolph was silent, and covered his eyes from the withering glances of the fiendish being who was gazing upon him.

“Thy foolish desires led thee in chase of the beautiful maiden into the church: my words were forgotten; and the benediction, against which I warned thee, disarmed the dice of their power. In future, observe my directions better.”

So saying, he vanished; and Schroll found three new dice upon the hearth.

After such scenes, sleep was not to be thought of; and Rudolph resolved, if possible, to make trial of his dice this very night. The ball at the hotel over the way, to which he had been invited, and from which