The inhabitants of the
castle could find no fault in the Magus, or Persian, excepting his
apparently dispensing with the ordinances of religion, since he neither
went to mass nor confession, nor attended upon other religious ceremonies.
It was observed that Dannischemend was rigid in paying his devotions,
by prostrating himself in the first rays of the rising sun, and that he
constructed a silver lamp of the most beautiful proportions, which he
placed on a pedestal representing a truncated column of marble, having
its base sculptured with hieroglyphical imagery. With what essences he
fed this flame was unknown to all, unless perhaps to the baron; but the
flame was more steady, pure, and lustrous, than any which was ever seen,
excepting the sun of heaven itself, and it was generally believed that
Dannischemend made it an object of worship in the absence of that blessed
luminary. Nothing else was observed of him, unless that his morals seemed
severe, his gravity extreme, his general mode of life very temperate, and
his fasts and vigils of frequent recurrence. Except on particular
occasions, he spoke to no one of the castle but the baron.
"Winter was succeeded by spring, summer brought her flowers, and autumn
her fruits, which ripened and were fading, when a foot-page, who sometimes
attended them in the laboratory to render manual assistance when required,
heard the Persian say to the Baron of Arnheim, 'You will do well, my son,
to mark my words; for my lessons to you are drawing to an end, and there
is no power on earth which can longer postpone my fate.
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