Free Twilight Land by Howard Pyle

conquered, he looked like one sorely sick. He was just able to stagger to a couch that stood by the wall, and there he fell and lay, without breath or motion, like one dead, and as white as wax.
    As soon as Gebhart had gathered his wits together he remembered what the master had said about the other room.
    The door of it was also of iron. He opened it and passed within, and there saw two great tables or blocks of polished marble. Upon one was the dagger and a goblet of gold brimming with water. Upon the other lay the figure of a woman, and as Gebhart looked at her he thought her more beautiful than any thought or dream could picture. But her eyes were closed, and she lay like a lifeless figure of wax.
    After Gebhart had gazed at her a long, long time, he tookup the goblet and the dagger from the table and turned towards the door.
    Then, before he left that place, he thought that he would have just one more look at the beautiful figure. So he did, and gazed and gazed until his heart melted away within him like a lump of butter; and, hardly knowing what he did, he stooped and kissed the lips.
    Instantly he did so a great humming sound filled the whole castle, so sweet and musical that it made him tremble to listen. Then suddenly the figure opened its eyes and looked straight at him.
    “At last!” she said; “have you come at last?”
    “Yes,” said Gebhart, “I have come.”
    Then the beautiful woman arose and stepped down from the table to the floor; and if Gebhart thought her beautiful before, he thought her a thousand times more beautiful now that her eyes looked into his.
    “Listen,” said she. “I have been asleep for hundreds upon hundreds of years, for so it was fated to be until he should come who was to bring me back to life again. You are he, and now you shall live with me forever. In this castle is the wealth gathered by the king of the genii, and it is greater than all the riches of the world. It and the castle likewise shall be yours. I can transport everything into any part of the world youchoose, and can by my arts make you prince or king or emperor. Come.”
    “Stop,” said Gebhart. “I must first do as my master bade me.”
    He led the way into the other room, the lady following him, and so they both stood together by the couch where the wise man lay. When the lady saw his face she cried out in a loud voice: “It is the great master! What are you going to do?”
    “I am going to sprinkle his face with this water,” said Gebhart.
    “Stop!” said she. “Listen to what I have to say. In your hand you hold the water of life and the dagger of death. The master is not dead, but sleeping; if you sprinkle that water upon him he will awaken, young, handsome and more powerful than the greatest magician that ever lived. I myself, this castle, and everything that is in it will be his, and, instead of your becoming a prince or a king or an emperor, he will be so in your place. That, I say, will happen if he wakens. Now the dagger of death is the only thing in the world that has power to kill him. You have it in your hand. You have but to give him one stroke with it while he sleeps, and he will never waken again, and then all will be yours—your very own.”
    Gebhart neither spoke nor moved, but stood looking down upon his master. Then he set down the goblet very softlyon the floor, and, shutting his eyes that he might not see the blow, he raised the dagger to strike.
    “That is all your promises amount to,” said Nicholas Flamel the wise man. “After all, Babette, you need not bring the bread and cheese, for he shall be no pupil of mine.”
    Then Gebhart opened his eyes.
    There sat the wise man in the midst of his books and bottles and diagrams and dust and chemicals and cobwebs, making strange figures upon the table with jackstraws and a piece of chalk.
    And Babette, who had just opened the cupboard door for the loaf of bread and the cheese, shut it again with a bang, and went back to her spinning.
    So