throat than we should, if he knew you'd played him false," said the
Count. "But we can't help that; in a place like this it's too risky to
break in, when we can be let in."
"If you'll only excuse me taking an active part," said Leander, "it's
all I ask. This is my plan, gentlemen. You see that little archway
there, where my finger points? Well, that leads by a small alley to a
yard, back of my saloon. You can leave your cart here, and come round as
safe as you please. I'll have the winder in my saloon unfastened, and
put the statue where you can get her easy; but I don't want to be mixed
up in it further than that."
"That seems fair enough," said the Count, "provided you keep to it."
"But suppose it's a plant?" growled Braddle. "Suppose he's planning to
lay a trap for us? Suppose we get in, to find Potter and his lot on the
look-out for us, or break into a house that's full of bloomin' coppers?"
"I did think of that; but I believe our friend knows that if he doesn't
act square with me, his life isn't worth a bent pin; and besides, he
can't warn the police without getting himself into more or less hot
water. So I think he'll see the wisdom of doing what he's told."
"I do," said Leander, "I do, gentlemen. I'd sooner die than deceive
you."
"Well," said the Count, "you'd find it come to the same thing."
"No," added Braddle. "If you blow the gaff on us, my bloomin', I'll saw
that pudden head of yours right off your shoulders, and swing for it,
cheerful!"
Leander shuddered. Amongst what desperate ruffians had his unlucky stars
led him! How would it all end, he wondered feebly--how?
"Well, gentlemen," he said, with his teeth chattering, "if you don't
want me any more, I'll go in; and I'm to expect you to-morrow evening, I
believe?"
"Expect us when you 'ear us," said Braddle; "and if you make fools of us
again----" And he described consequences which exceeded in
unpleasantness the worst that Leander could have imagined.
The poor man tottered back to his room again, in a most unenviable frame
of mind; not even the prospect of being delivered from the goddess could
reconcile him to the price he must pay for it. He was going to take a
plunge into downright crime now; and if his friend the inspector came to
hear of it, ruin must follow. And, in any case, the cloak and the ring
would be gone beyond recovery, while these cut-throat housebreakers
would henceforth have a hold over him; they might insist upon steeping
him in blacker crime still, and he knew he would never have the courage
to resist.
As he thought of the new difficulties and dangers that compassed him
round about, he was frequently on the verge of tears, and his couch
that night was visited by dreadful dreams, in which he sought audience
of the Evil One himself at cross-roads, was chased over half London by
police, and dragged over the other half by burglars, to be finally
flattened by the fall of Aphrodite.
AT LAST
IX.
"Does not the stone rebuke me
For being more stone than it?"
_Winter's Tale._
"Yet did he loath to see the image fair,
White and unchanged of face, unmoved of limb!"
_Earthly Paradise._
Leander's hand was very tremulous all the next day, as several indignant
clients discovered, and he closed as early as he could, feeling it
impossible to attend to business under the circumstances.
About seven o'clock he went up to his sitting-room. A difficult and
ungrateful task was before him. To facilitate her removal, he must
persuade the goddess to take up a position in the saloon for the night;
and, much as he had suffered from her, there was something traitorous in
delivering her over to these coarse burglars.
He waited until the statue showed signs of returning animation, and then
said, "Good evening, mum," more obsequiously than usual.
She never deigned to notice or return his salutations. "Hairdresser,"
she said abruptly, "I am weary of this sordid place."
He was pleased, for it furthered his views. "It isn't so sordid in the
saloon, where you stood the other evening, you know," he replied. "Will
you step down there?"
"Bah!" she said, "it is _all_ sordid. Leander, a restlessness has come
upon me. I come back night after night out of the vagueness in which I
have lain so long, and for what? To stand here in this mean chamber and
proffer my favour, only to find it repulsed, disdained. I am tired of
it--tired!"
"You can't be more tired of it than I am!" he said.
"I ask myself," she went on, "why, having, through your means, ascended
once more to the earth, which I left so fair, I seek not those things
which once delighted me. This city of yours--all that I have seen of
it--revolts me; but it is vast, vaster than those built by the mortals
of old. Surely somewhere there must be brightness in it and beauty, and
the colour and harmony by which men knew once to delight the gods
themselves. It cannot be that the gods of old are all forgotten; surely,
somewhere there yet lingers a little band of faithful ones, who have not
turned from Aphrodite."
"I can't say, I'm sure," said Leander; "I could inquire for you."
"I myself will seek for them," she said proudly. "I will go forth this
very night."
Leander choked. "To-night!" he cried. "You _can't_ go to-night."
"You forget yourself," she returned haughtily.
"If I let you go," he said hesitatingly, "will you promise faithfully to
be back in half an hour?"
"Do you not yet understand that you have to do with a goddess--with
Aphrodite herself?" she said. "Who are you, to presume to fetter me by
your restrictions? Truly, the indulgence I have shown has turned your
weak brain."
He put his back against the door. He was afraid of the goddess, but he
was still more afraid of the burglars' vengeance if they arrived to find
the prize missing.
"I'm sorry to disoblige a lady," he said; "but you don't go out of this
house to-night."
In another minute he was lying in the fender amongst the
fireirons--alone! How it was done he was too stunned to remember; but
the goddess was gone. If she did not return by midnight, what would
become of him? If he had only been civil to her, she might have stayed;
but now she had abandoned him to certain destruction!
A kind of fatalistic stupor seized him. He would not run away--he would
have to come home some time--nor would he call in the police, for he had
a very vivid recollection of Mr. Braddle's threat in such a contingency.
He went, instead, into the dark saloon, and sat down in a chair to wait.
He wondered how he could explain the statue's absence. If he told the
burglars it had gone for a stroll, they would tear him limb from limb.
"I was so confoundedly artful about Potter," he thought bitterly, "that
they'll never believe now I haven't warned him!"
At every sound outside he shook like a leaf; the quarters, as they
sounded from the church clock, sank like cold weights upon his heart.
"If only Venus would come back first!" he moaned; but the statue never
returned.
At last he heard steps--muffled ones--on the paved alley outside. He had
forgotten to leave the window unfastened, after all, and he was too
paralysed to do it now.
The steps were in the little yard, or rather a sort of back area,
underneath the window. "It may be only a constable," he tried to say to
himself; but there is no mistaking the constabulary tread, which is not
fairy-like, or even gentle, like that he heard.
A low whistle destroyed his last hope. In a quite unpremeditated manner
he put out the gas and rolled under a leather divan which stood at the
end of the room. He wished now, with all his heart, that he had run away
while he had the chance; but it was too late.
"I hope they'll do it with a revolver, and not a knife," he thought.
"Oh, my poor Matilda! you little know what I'm going through just now,
and what'll be going through _me_ in another minute!"
A hoarse voice under the window called out, "Tweddle!"
He lay still. "None o' that, yer skulker; I know yer there!" said the
voice again. "Do yer want to give me the job o' coming after yer?"
After all, Leander reflected, there was the window and a thick
half-shutter between them. It might be best not to provoke Mr. Braddle
at the outset. He came half out of his hiding-place. "Is that you, Mr.
Braddle?" he quavered.
"Ah!" said the voice, affirmatively. "Is this what you call being ready
for us? Why, the bloomin' winder ain't even undone!"
"That's what I'm here for," said poor Leander. "Is the--the other
gentleman out there too?"
"You mind your business! You'll find something the Count give me to
bring yer; I've put it on the winder-sill out 'ere. And you obey horders
next time, will yer?"
The footsteps were heard retreating. Mr. Braddle was apparently going
back to fetch his captain. Leander let down the shutter, and opened the
window. He could not see, but he could feel a thick, rough bundle lying
on the window-sill.
He drew this in, slammed down the window, and ran up the shutter in a
second, before the two could have had time to discover him.
"Now," he thought, "I _will_ run for it;" and he groped his way out of
the dark saloon to the front shop, where he paused, and, taking a match
from his pocket, struck a light. His parcel proved to be rough
sackcloth, on the outside of which a paper was pinned.
Why did the Count write, when he was coming in directly? Curiosity made
him linger even then to ascertain this. The paper contained a hasty
scrawl in blue chalk. "_Not to-night_," he read; "_arrangements still
uncomplete. Expect us to-morrow night without fail, and see that
everything is prepared. Cloth sent with this for packing goods. P----
laid up with professional accident, and safe for a week or two. You must
have known this--why not say so last night? No trifling, if you value
life!_"
It was a reprieve--at the last moment! He had a whole day before him for
flight, and he fully intended to flee this time; those hours of suspense
in the saloon were too terrible to be gone through twice.
But as he was turning out his cashbox, and about to go upstairs and
collect a few necessaries, he heard a well-known tread outside. He ran
to the door, which he unfastened with trembling hands, and the statue,
with the hood drawn closely round her strange painted face, passed in
without seeming to heed his presence.
She had come back to him. Why should he run away now, when, if he waited
one more night, he might be rescued from one of his terrors by means of
the other?
"Lady Venus!" he cried hysterically. "Oh, Lady Venus, mum, I thought you
was gone for ever!"
"And you have grieved?" she said almost tenderly. "You welcome my return
with joy! Know then, Leander, that I myself feel pleasure in returning,
even to such a roof as this; for little gladness have I had from my
wanderings. Upon no altar did I see my name shine, nor the perfumed
flame flicker; the Lydian measures were silent, and the praise of
Cytherea. And everywhere I went I found the same senseless troubled
haste, and pale mean faces of men, and squalor, and tumult. Grace and
joyousness have fled--even from your revelry! But I have seen your new
gods, and understand: for, all grimy and mis-shapen and uncouth are they
as they stand in your open places and at the corners of your streets.
Zeus, what a place must Olympus now be! And can any men worship such
monsters, and be gladsome?"
Leander did not perceive the very natural mistake into which the goddess
had fallen; but the fact was, that she had come upon some of our justly
renowned public statues.
"I'm sorry you haven't enjoyed yourself, mum," was all he could find to
say.
"Should I linger in such scenes were it not for you?" she cried
reproachfully. "How much longer will you repulse me?"
"That depends on you, mum," he ventured to observe.
"Ah! you are cold!" she said reproachfully; "yet surely I am worthy of
the adoration of the proudest mortal. Judge me not by this marble
exterior, cunningly wrought though it be. Charms are mine, more dazzling
than any your imagination can picture; and could you surrender your
being to my hands, I should be able to show myself as I really
am--supreme in loveliness and majesty!"
Unfortunately, the hairdresser's imagination was not his strongest
point. He could not dissociate the goddess from the marble shape she had
assumed, and that shape he was not sufficiently educated to admire; he
merely coughed now in a deferential manner.
"I perceive that I cannot move you," she said. "Men have grown strangely
stubborn and impervious. I leave you, then, to your obstinacy; only take
heed lest you provoke me at last to wrath, for my patience is well-nigh
at an end!"
And she was gone, and the bedizened statue stood there, staring hardly
at him with the eyes his own hand had given her.
"This has been the most trying evening I've had yet," he thought. "Thank
my stars, if all goes well, I shall get rid of her by this time
to-morrow!"
The next day passed uneventfully enough, though the unfortunate
Leander's apprehensions increased with every hour. As before, he closed
early, got his apprentice safely off the premises, and sat down to wait
in his saloon. He knew that the statue (which he had concealed during
the day behind a convenient curtain) would probably recover
consciousness for some part of the evening, as it had rarely failed to
do, and prudence urged him to keep an eye over the proceedings of his
tormentress.
To his horror, Aphrodite's first words, after awaking, expressed her
intention of repeating the search for homage and beauty, which had been
so unsuccessful the night before!
"Seek not to detain me, Leander," she said; "for, goddess as I am, I am
drooping under this persistent obduracy. Somewhere beyond this murky
labyrinth, it may be that I shall find a shrine where I am yet
honoured. I will go forth, and never rest till I have found it, and my
troubled spirits are revived by the incense for which I have languished
so long. I am weary of abasing myself to such a contemptuous mortal, nor
will I longer endure such indignity. Stand back, and open the gates for
me! Why do you not obey?"
He knew now that to attempt force would be useless; and yet if she left
him this time, he must either abandon all that life held for him, and
fly to distant parts from the burglars' vengeance--or remain to meet a
too probable doom!
He fell on his knees before her. "Oh, Lady Venus," he entreated, "don't
leave me! I beg and implore you not to! If you do, you will kill me! I
give you my honest word you will!"
The statue's face seemed irradiated by a sudden joy. She paused, and
glanced down with an approving smile upon the kneeling figure at her
feet.
"Why did you not kneel to me before?" she said.
[Illustration: "WHY DID YOU NOT KNEEL TO ME BEFORE?"]
"Because I never thought of it," said the hairdresser, honestly; "but
I'll stay on my knees for hours, if only you won't go!"
"But what has made you thus eager, thus humble?" she said, half in
wonder and half in suspicion. "Can it be, that the spark I have sought
to kindle in your breast is growing to a flame at last? Leander, can
this thing be?"
He saw that she was gratified, that she desired to be assured that this
was indeed so.
"I shouldn't be surprised if something like that was going on inside of
me," he said encouragingly.
"Answer me more frankly," she said. "Do you wish me to remain with
you because you have learnt to love my presence?"
It was a very embarrassing position for him. All depended upon his
convincing the goddess of his dawning love, and yet, for the life of
him, he could not force out the requisite tenderness; his imagination
was unequal to the task.
Another and a more creditable feeling helped to tie his tongue--a sense
of shame at employing such a subterfuge in order to betray the goddess
into the lawless hands of these housebreakers. However, she must be
induced to stay by some means.
"Well," he said sheepishly, "you don't give me a chance to love you, if
you go wandering out every evening, do you?"
She gave a low cry of triumph. "It has come!" she exclaimed. "What are
clouds of incense, flowers, and homage, to this? Be of good heart; I
will stay, Leander. Fear not, but speak the passion which consumes you!"
He became alarmed. He was anxious not to commit himself, and yet employ
the time until the burglars might be expected.
"The fact is," he confessed, "it hasn't gone so far as that yet--it's
beginning; all it wants is _time_, you know--time, and being let alone."
"All Time will be before us, when once your lips have pronounced the
words of surrender, and our spirits are transported together to the
enchanted isle."
"You talk about me going over to this isle--this Cyprus," he said; "but
it's a long journey, and I can't afford it. How _you_ come and go, I
don't know; but I've not been brought up to it myself. I can't flash
across like a telegram!"
"Trust all to me," she said. "Is not your love strong enough for that?"
"Not quite yet," he answered; "it's coming on. Only, you see, it's a
serious step to take, and I naturally wish to feel my way. I declare,
the more I gaze upon the--the elegant form and figger which I see before
me, the stronger and the more irresistible comes over me a burning
desire to think the whole thing carefully over. And if you only allowed
me a little longer to gaze (I've no time to myself except in the
evenings), I don't think it would be long before this affair reached a
'appy termination--I don't indeed!"
"Gaze, then," she said, smiling--"gaze to your soul's content."
"I mean no offence," he represented, having felt his way to a stroke of
supreme cunning, "but when I feel there's a goddess inside of this
statue, I don't know how it is exactly, but it puts me off. I can't fix
my thoughts; the--the passion don't ferment as it ought. If, supposing
now, you was to withdraw yourself and leave me the statue? I could gaze
on it, and think of thee, and Cyprus, and all the rest of it, more
comfortable, so to speak, than what I can when you're animating of it,
and making me that nervous, words can't describe it!"
He hardly dared to hope that so lame and transparent a device would
succeed with her; but, as he had previously found, there was a certain
spice of credulity and simplicity in her nature, which made it possible
to impose upon her occasionally.
"It may be so," she said. "I overawe thee, perchance?"
"Very much so," said he, promptly. "You don't intend it, I know; but
it's a fact."
"I will leave you to meditate upon the charms so faintly shadowed in
this image, remembering that whatever of loveliness you find herein will
be multiplied ten thousand-fold in the actual Aphrodite! Remain, then;
ponder and gaze--and love!"
He waited for a little while after the statue was silent, and then took
up the sacking left for him by Braddle; twice he attempted to throw it
over the marble, and twice he recoiled. "It's no use," he said, "I can't
do it; they must do it themselves!"
He carefully unfastened the window at the back of his saloon, and,
placing the statue in the centre of the floor, turned out the gas, and
with a beating heart stole upstairs to his bedroom, where (with his door
bolted) he waited anxiously for the arrival of his dreaded deliverers.
He scarcely knew how long he had been there, for a kind of waking dream
had come upon him, in which he was providing the statue with light
refreshment in the shape of fancy pebbles and liquid cement, when the
long, low whistle, faintly heard from the back of the house, brought him
back to his full senses.
The burglars had come! He unbolted the door and stole out to the top of
the crazy staircase, intending to rush back and bolt himself in if he
heard steps ascending; and for some minutes he strained his ears,
without being able to catch a sound.
At last he heard the muffled creak of the window, as it was thrown up.
They were coming in! Would they, or would they not, be inhuman enough to
force him to assist them in the removal?
They were still in the saloon; he heard them trampling about, moving the
furniture with unnecessary violence, and addressing one another in tones
that were not caressing. Now they were carrying the statue to the
window; he heard their labouring breath and groans of exertion under the
burden.
Another pause. He stole lower down the staircase, until he was outside
his sitting-room, and could hear better. There! that was the thud as
they leapt out on the flagged yard. A second and heavier thud--the
goddess! How would they get her over the wall? Had they brought steps,
ropes, or what? No matter; they knew their own business, and were not
likely to have forgotten anything. But how long they were about it!
Suppose a constable were to come by and see the cart!
There were sounds at last; they were scaling the wall--floundering,
apparently; and no wonder, with such a weight to hoist after them! More
thuds; and then the steps of men staggering slowly, painfully away. The
steps echoed louder from under the archway, and then died away in
silence.
Could they be really gone? He dared not hope so, and remained shivering
in his sitting-room for some minutes; until, gaining courage, he
determined to go down and shut the window, to avoid any suspicion.
Although now that the burglars were safely off with their prize, even
their capture could not implicate him. He rather hoped they _would_ be
caught!
He took a lighted candle, and descended. As he entered the saloon, a
gust from the open window blew out the light. He stood there in the dark
and an icy draught; and, beginning to grope about in the dark for the
matches, he brushed against something which was soft and had a
cloth-like texture. "It's Braddle!" he thought, and his blood ran cold;
"or else the Count!" And he called them both respectfully. There was no
reply; no sound of breathing, even.
Ha! here was a box of matches at last! He struck a light in feverish
haste, and lit the nearest gas-bracket. For an instant he could see
nothing, in the sudden glare; but the next moment he fell back against
the wall with a cry of horror and despair.
For there, in the centre of the disordered room, stood--not the Count,
not Braddle--but the statue, the mantle thrown back from her arms, and
those arms, and the folds of the marble drapery, spotted here and there
with stains of dark crimson!
DAMOCLES DINES OUT
X.
"To feed were best at home."--_Macbeth._
As soon as Leander had recovered from the first shock of horror and
disappointment, he set himself to efface the stains with which the
statue and the oilcloth were liberally bespattered; he was burning to
find out what had happened to make such desperadoes abandon their design
at the point of completion.
They both seemed to have bled freely. Had they quarrelled, or what? He
went out into the yard with a hand-lamp, trembling lest he should come
upon one or more corpses; but the place was bare, and he then remembered
having heard them stumble and flounder over the wall.
He came back in utter bewilderment; the statue, standing calm and
lifeless as he had himself placed it, could tell him nothing, and he
went back to his bedroom full of the vaguest fears.
The next day was a Saturday, and he passed it in the state of continual
apprehension which was becoming his normal condition. He expected every
moment to see or hear from the baffled ruffians, who would, no doubt,
consider him responsible for their failure; but no word nor sign came
from them, and the uncertainty drove him very near distraction.
As the night approached, he almost welcomed it, as a time when the
goddess herself would enlighten part of his ignorance; and he waited
more impatiently than ever for her return.
He was made to wait long that evening, until he almost began to think
that the marble was deserted altogether; but at length, as he watched,
the statue gave a long, shuddering sigh, and seemed to gaze round the
saloon with vacant eyes.
"Where am I?" she murmured. "Ah! I remember. Leander, while you
slumbered, impious hands were laid upon this image!"
"Dear me, mum; you don't say so!" exclaimed Leander.
"It is the truth! From afar I felt the indignity that was purposed, and
hastened to protect my image, to find it in the coarse grasp of godless
outlaws. Leander, they were about to drag me away by force--away from
thee!"
"I'm very sorry you should have been disturbed," said Leander; and he
certainly was. "So you came back and caught them at it, did you? And
wh--what did you do to 'em, if I may inquire?"