"God grant," he said, in a tone of sincerity, "that this keep her from Popish errors and follies; but it is difficult for a young maid to stand alone in a foreign country and not follow the ways of it, eh, Vanderlinden?"
He placed the little case in the embroidered purse that hung at his waist, gave the alchemist a preoccupied farewell, and left the house with a heavy step and a little click of his long gilded spurs. Vanderlinden waited until he heard the clang of His Highness's horse's hoofs over the cobbles, then he returned to his laboratory.
One of his assistants, young Hans Gottman, was leaning from the window watching the departure of the Elector, another was heating over the clear furnace some clay vases sealed with lead.
Vanderlinden caught Hans Gottman by the white apron.
"Fetch me the manuscripts of Rhasis, Alfarabi and Geber," he said. "They are locked in the chest in the still-room."
Young Hans withdrew his head and shoulders from the window.
"You know those sages by heart, master," he replied, half in irony, half in flattery.
"True," replied Vanderlinden, "but there may be something the meaning of which I have not completely understood, and it is very necessary that we start another experiment at once."
"The last cost thirteen thousand thalers," remarked the young man doubtfully.
The alchemist frowned away this unpleasant truth. "Bring me also," he said, "_Le livre de la Philosophie Naturelle des Métaux_ of Bernard Trévisan, and the works of Raymond Lully."
But the young man still lingered; he was more interested in the world about him than in the science of his master.
"Did His Highness come about the marriage?" he asked.
The alchemist vented on his assistant the impatience he had concealed from the Prince.
"Am I never to hear the last of this marriage?" he cried. "I would the maid was wedded and gone, then maybe we should have a little peace in Leipsic."
"But it is a wicked thing," cried Hans, "to marry a Princess of the true faith to a Popish noble—a friend of King Philip, a friend of the Bishop of Arras—one who hates the Reformed Religion. I have some right to talk, master, for my father fought under the Elector Maurice against the late Emperor. Who thought then that the only child of the Elector would wed with the minion of the Emperor? A shame and a scandal it is to the country, and His Highness should be above sacrificing a young maid to the idolaters——"