MINE HOST OF THE FOUR CROSS ROADS.
The year of grace 1609. Our scene, a tavern within, and yet apart
from, the bustle of a seaport town. Damned by its site upon an
ill-omened juncture of cross-roads, which, at a time when the town
had not straggled so far, had been the burial ground of suicide and
sorcerer: haunted by bones still sleepless, although centuries had
gone since their last rag of flesh reeked off into the medicinal air;
solitary in a crowd, except for such strangers as never learnt the
local traditions. For these very reasons it attracted the attention
of a class that feared men more than ghosts; and thus it came to be
whispered among the neighbours as the house of call for the wizards
of the Basque Provinces.
Such was the situation upon which the curtain rises. Our readers may
now form a guess as to the character of the traveller that sought
admittance upon the evening in question. This traveller was
apparently alone--only apparently--for another sentient being
suddenly makes known to us his presence on the scene. The cabalistic
ring which graced the finger of our traveller shot a double-lightning
from its tenant stone as the fist of its lord beat a devil's tattoo
on the tavern door. The demon that was imprisoned within the ring
had lifted for one second his pendulous eyelids. Foreknowledge of
his approaching freedom to be wrought under that roof (as this
chronicle shall in due order tell), had touched up buried fires; but
patience born of immortality resumed its pride of place, and the
Demon dissembling again a hope too soon revealed, there died in the
instant all light from the gem, and left it fuscous as before. The
fist in knocking was naturally raised above the head of the cabalist
that wore the ring. The traveller consequently failed to perceive
the eyebeams of his familiar. Be sure if he caught sight of that
glint of evil glee he would have read in it an omen of impending
disaster to the enterprise that turned him to that tavern. The
future of cabalist and demon would then have hung upon his decision
whether to dree the weird or 'scape it. But the significants that
ruled his horoscope withheld the timely warning, and the traveller
continued his endeavours to get hearing from the all too early
retired household. Thus the moment of possible retreat passed
irrevocably by. A wicket sunk in the stubborn thickness of the door,
was thrown suddenly open. A pair of eyes appeared--luminous,
terrible. They fixed those of the cabalist unflinchingly, beams to
beams, lights to lights, and the cabalist recognised in the eyes of
his adversary the self-same, tell-tale film through which he flashed
his own. Not the film of the eagle neither, that may enable the king
of birds to peruse the noonday sun, but would impotently shrivel
before the venomous exhalations that stream from fiery pits that
blaze under fallen angels' brows, no, the eyes of the intervisible
twain were sheathed with the shard of the born exorcist--the heir of
the secrets and physical gifts of a line of wizard sires. From
behind these horny casements they had measured the frown of Satan's
self, and danced undaunted and undulled. Sparse were the mortals
whom the cabalist reckoned fellow-men; but here, at any rate, was one
of them. The cabalist waxed kindly, as he proceeded to interrogate
what he felt to be a kindred spirit.
"Is this the hostelry of the Four Cross Roads?"
"By some such name is it noted among the Vulgar."
"And are you he of whom they whisper, under the name of Aquelarre?"
"I am the master of this house."
"You are then he to whom I am recommended by one I have good reason
to trust."
"May I trouble you for his name?"
"To me he is known as Lisaldo."
"Under that name, at any rate, I do not know him; but that argues
nothing. A thousand soldiers know the lieutenant whom the lieutenant
does not know."
"By this token you may know him, that he gave you a name of praise
and fear--that of the devil's correspondent for the viscounty of
Labourt."
"And if it were so?"
"Then over and above being yourself sunk from sole to crown in the
study of supernature you have traced the gigantic plan of linking
yourself together with all else that tread untrodden ways. And I saw
that the design was good--for in union there is strength--and if we
in the far New World from which I come, are to-day unthreatened by
the bigotry of the church, it would nevertheless be short sight
indeed if we played the spectator, while among you runs the writ of
cord and faggot. To-morrow, mayhap, we shall be persecuted in our
turn, and ashes the brethren that could have bettered us. For this,
then, am I travelled hither, as I may say at your bidding, since the
suggestion proceeded from one who knows you, though him you may not
know; that we may survey together the field of your danger, and in
consort draft such measure of defiance and defence as shall eat up
this persecution at the root. This evening disembarked and
understanding from that same Lisaldo, that under cover of the tavern
of the Four Cross Roads your pursue your devil's procuracy, I have
hustled hither straight to take up my quarters beneath your kindly
roof."
"Are you then alone or do I rightly see two others that linger in
your rear among the shadows?"
"The one of them is this Lisaldo that I speak of, to whom I owe your
name, and who has attached himself to my personal service; and in
this connexion I may mention that I shall require two communicating
bedrooms (or be it one with a dressing-room adjacent) to gratify my
long, and now invincible, vogue of keeping my servant all night
within my call. My other follower is a Creole of the family
Ataurresagasti; by trade an honest seaman, but not, I believe, too
honest to be of possible use to our cause. Told off to do us service
during the long and perilous passage he has been only too anxious to
be of comfort to us, and we are indebted to him for countless little
offices. Arrived at your wharves we could satisfy him with nothing
less than the porterage of half our effects, and since the whole were
too heavy for Lisaldo, 'twas but policy to accept his friendly offer,
rather than initiate a stranger into our destination. Accommodated
with a bed in this same house, he will be under our united
ken--should you consider him metal that may be moulded to our purpose
he need never return to his ship."
"Nor for the matter of that in the contrary case either, since it
were unsafe for him to have even touched the skirts of our common
secret. 'Tis child's play for such as you and I to rot the thread of
life with an oblivious gruel."
"We will confer upon that matter in the bedroom which you allot me,
while Lisaldo and the sailor are refreshing themselves below. You
are satisfied with my credentials, and will admit us without delay,
since the night is wasting shrewdly?"
"There is one thing wanting--your name."
"My name I have never syllabled since my birth, nor would it be
possible to deceive you with a false one, you being what you are and
I wearing this ring by whose fame you and all of life occult may know
me."
The cabalist jerked his slender hand from out of the folds of his
cloak, where he had thrust it after the opening of the wicket. Its
crouching prisoner (wiser than before) allowed never a wink to escape
him. But that it was in sooth the very ring that contained the
familiar (renowned among the sorcerers of the whole round world)
Aquelarre well could see. An insane impulse to strike down the
insolent owner, and incontinently seize the matchless gem, contracted
every fibre of his body. Had the door not stood between them, he
would have made the rash attempt, only to remember, when too late,
that the allegiance of the Demon could never by violence transfer
from man to man. He ground the wicket into its place to hide the
distortion of his features, and busied himself with bolts and bars
that they might clatter above the gnashing of his teeth. By the time
he had undone the fastenings the impulse had passed. Recollecting
all the restrictions that fenced the ring around, he had become once
more himself. Meanwhile the nameless cabalist had summoned with a
whistle his two attendants forward. Youths of about an equal age,
the one was white as a cosset page, and the other tanned like a
galley-slave.
The massive portal swung a-side with a suddenness that even drew a
start from the seasoned nerves of the cabalist, though it must be
evident that one who had put together such a ring must be steeped in
no ordinary course of sciences and surprises. A blaze of light shot
through the widening passage into the dark deserted street. A host
of obsequious hands stretched out of the blinding drift and relieved
the two bearers of their luggage. Before the three newcomers had
acquired the proper focus to even perceive who had thus helped them,
the helpers were out of sight. Viands and vintages which had
appeared with startling rapidity alone remained to prove to their
eyes which the travellers rubbed, the substantiality of the just
present bodies. Also the master of the house stood there,
unbonneted, and bowing his welcome. The cabalist refused to break a
fast which was integral to some experiment in hand; leaving this,
then, to the more congenial age of Lisaldo and the sailor, he
withdrew with Aquelarre to his apartments. Thus the youths so like,
and yet so unlike, at last were left alone together.
The footfalls of the brothers of the black art had hardly died away
above stairs when the sailor turned to Lisaldo abruptly and whispered
in a tone attuned to every sweetness--;
"Lisalda!"
The page started as if stung to death, at thus hearing an address in
the feminine form of the name, instead of in the masculine. His face
at first blanched with sudden terror, and then flooded with rosy red.
He made a confused attempt at correction.
"You mean Lisaldo."
"Lisalda, and Lisalda, and Lisalda."
The sailor persisted--this apparent error seemed to water in his
mouth--then remembering himself he became sheepish as a chidden
child, and sank presently on to his knees. The page eyed him
guiltily, then the sailor took courage in his hands and made sensible
his inmost heart.
"I love you, Lisalda, and love has keener sight than many that call
it blind. I felt your sex from the first hour you stepped aboard. I
kindled to it with an instinct that strangled reason. It possessed
every fibre of me through all our days becalmed on Sargasso seas that
to me seemed flower shotten meads. I clenched my teeth on it our
tropic nights when hand in hand you walked my watch with me, and
learnt from me the blazonry of heaven. Months ago I should have
given throat to the heart that hungered within me. But in my surly
sailor fashion I only tightened my belt around it. I am no saint,
Lisalda, I have served apprentice to buccaneers on Carribean
seas--men that never set a hand to honest tool save when they planted
chests of gold in the earth, I have swam o' days in blood and o'
nights in wine. But the hand that scattered the brains of Don and
Dutchman was an aspen held in yours. Terror tremendously overruled
me, when I would fain have slipped the cable of my desire, and it is
a marvel to me now that I kneel at your feet, though I know full well
that my revealment is wrung from me by the parting asunder of our
ways. Here must I speak or ever after hold my peace, here you may
infuse yourself with a heart no less honest than rough, that has beat
for naught nor will beat for aught save you; or here you may rule me
unworthy of more that has already enjoyed overmuch. It bodes me ill
I fear, Lisalda, that you never read a heart so confounded with your
own; but, whatever you say will be for me the voice of oracle that is
worshipped whether good or ill."
"The oracle is dumb to-night, Ataurresagasti, though you have taught
me that I knew your love from the first. I cannot decide at once
whether I have done you irreparable wrong, or added to your fulness
of life. To-morrow, friend (if that title does not jar upon you)
shall learn you all your heart's desire. And (whatever that morrow's
disillusion) to-night at any rate, your image will disturb my no
longer virgin sleep."
"Your sleep, Lisalda, there's the rub that galls my jealous loin.
To-night that I have a share in you (though it be but for to-night) I
shudder at the thought of your retiring to the ante-room of the
bed-chamber of that other man. Throughout the voyage every lip
before the mast has shriven him with curses (not loud, but deep) for
the wayward winds his Jonah presence fetched athwart our course. The
bated breath of the forecastle credited him with the wearing of a
familiar spirit imprisoned in the setting of that ring upon his hand.
How did such as you come to foregather with one so unkindly, and
withal so far from this your birthplace? And what is his need of you
that one so powerful should claim you close at heel?"
"Ataurresagasti, it were too long to tell you how I came to be
orphaned, and at buffet with the world. Too long again to recount
the chances that transferred me from here to the Indies. Enough that
I must have been in desperate straits when I donned the disguise I
still wear, and entered the vacant service of my present lord and
master. That he lived in evil odour had come to my ears, and that he
never kept his servants long, but that they either went mad or died
was more than gossip to me that first attended my master to the
funeral of my predecessor. I was situated so sorely that I would
have worn Satan's livery to earn me bed and board. Now the secret of
the wants of my master and the wastage amongst his servants is this:
his nerves are completely shattered by terrible experiments, the
nature of which I never dare to know. He sees through the veil that
round us wraps impenetrably. He is haunted day and night by hosts of
beings incorporately awful. Over these, indeed, some sway of his
extends (else were he long since torn to shreds), but only by the
continual strain of every resource of his science. The demon that is
familiar of the ring you speak of--the loathsome creepiness that
writhes within a crystal cell and impotently spits at such as dare to
see--is on the one hand the crowning glory of his labours, and the
envy of the wizard world--and on the other hand an anxious horror
that makes cheap the mere routine of Hell. Day it turns to night,
night to nightmare, and still the worst of all remains--the hour
between midnight and cockcrow when the heavenly patrols are relieving
guard and the nether gates swing open and all the rout of Hell are
free to seek their own devilish devices. Now you can guess, can you
not, Ataurresagasti, why the cabalist never remains alone in the
dark?"
"By the God I never praised till I met you, Lisalda, this passes the
worst I had imagined. But do you still think so ill of me (after the
centuries of mingled life we have crushed into so curt an orbit), do
you still so little value my self esteem as to believe me capable
(now I know what your service is) of allowing you to continue it for
even yet one grain of the hour glass? To the devil with this enemy
and friend of his, and let the poor prisoner of the ring have his
day! I, too, am a prisoner and feel for all in bonds."
"You are the best of men, Ataurresagasti, and fittest to be free.
But for this night at any rate (however your reasons may touch me) I
must fulfil my contract, as of use and wont. Whatever new
combination to-morrow's sun may bring, it is too late to-night, at
any rate, to find a substitute to comrade the broken slumbers of the
cabalist."
"It is never too late, Lisalda, to crown my broad shoulders with the
lightness of a burden saved from yours. I beseech you, as a lover
whom you may yet reject, not to refuse me this (as it may be) last
sad privilege--chance itself (if all be not fated from the first)
plays patron to my innocent stratagem. The landlord of this tavern
of the Four Cross Roads (and may I die the day I see a more
ill-favoured fellow) has heard our names, it is true, but can have no
means of telling which is which. Do you call yourself the cabin-boy,
Ataurresagasti, and vouchsafe me for one brief snatch, to be bone of
the bone, and flesh of the flesh with Lisalda (or Lisaldo). The
certainty that you are bolted and barred once more in a room alone,
will bear me up through all that teems from Tophet. The cabalist is
the only eye that could detect the substitution, and he keeps (or you
would never have remained his) respectfully on his own side the
partition until morning. The dawn may see him damned, so far as his
hold on either of us is concerned, and we will set forth (together I
trust) about our own peace and pleasure."
"As to that I can give you no promise, Ataurresagasti, save to
remember you in any case until the last sigh of life. But this, as
you say, is all the more reason why I should let you be my proxy, if
it will give you any unfeigned satisfaction. And here comes back our
host on the heels of our accord, and the curtain rises on our play."
The sailor rose to his feet. It was as Lisalda said, for such (her
secret once revealed) we may as well henceforth style her, Aquelarre
having finished his business with the cabalist come to summon the
page to his attendance. But he first drew a bottle and three goblets
from a press and placed the latter on one of the tables. Filling
them to the overflow, he appointed one to each to drink a parting
cup. All three raised on high and touched together their goblets in
token of sentiment, somewhat hollow. Ataurresagasti had scarcely put
his lips to the liquid, when memory started armed from his brain. It
was hocussed. There was no doubt about it. He had been drugged once
before by the pressgang of the pirate, with whom he had served out
his buccaneer articles. Once bit, twice shy. He replaced the goblet
on the table, the other two mechanically followed his example. The
good fellowship that shone upon his weather-beaten face was in
inverse ratio to the ready subtlety that scanned every loophole from
within; and presently he swooped down with unerring instinct upon the
only possible coign of vantage. The meaning eyes of the landlord had
turned upon the innocent eyes of Lisalda. He was staring out her
inmost soul. Taking advantage of this absorption of the two,
Ataurresagasti reversed the positions of the drugged goblet and that
of the landlord. So smartly did he execute this manoeuvre that it
would most certainly have escaped the notice of an ordinary observer.
But had it escaped the lynx-eyed Aquelarre? The sailor breathed more
freely when, upon all three once more raising their goblets, the
whole of the hocussed stuff disappeared without question down the
landlord's corded throat. All having drained to the dregs, Aquelarre
turned and addressed himself to the quondam buccaneer:--
"May I be burnt by the Parliament of Bordeaux if my customer upstairs
let me into the secret as to which of you two he mastered. Now I'll
be bound 'tis you, my jolly Roger (and not this queasy cabin-boy)
that has chaffered for gold his rest o' nights to the wandering Jew
up aloft there."
"Your guess does honour to your penetration, Monsieur Four Cross
Roads, though you did overshoot your bolt a bit when you called me
Jolly Roger."
"Ho, ho, Monsieur Lisaldo, so you turned your skin then with your
livery, and no longer acknowledge the Black Flag?"
"How do you know that I had ever anything in common with the Black
Flag?"
"Easy as lying, Monsieur Lisaldo, easy as lying. Your face, my
friend (and for the matter of that, everyone's face), is as an open
book whereon I read. Nay, your hand alone, my friend, shouts your
past, your present, and your future to such as I that have ears to
hear."
"Of the past and of the present I am already sick at heart, but I am
open to receive any index (what it may befit me to know) as to how
the future shall shape itself before me."
"A good wish upon you! I am permitted to tell you, at any rate, that
you chose your vocation under a healthy star, for you were never born
to be drowned!"
The sailor hardly knew whether to be amused or annoyed at the tone
adopted by the chiromantist. He continued to balance the matter in a
confused sort of way, after he had taken shy leave of Lisalda.
Arrived in his room, he barred and bolted the outer door with a
thoroughness born of much adventuring. He loosened a hanger that he
wore at his side, and tied it by its belt as with a sword knot to his
wrist. That had been the _toilet de rigueur_ for the night among his
former messmates, the pirates of the Antilles. In this array then,
supine upon the bed, he confidently awaited developments. To keep
himself awake he continued to agitate the mysterious character and
conduct of Aquelarre. The events of the evening, since the
ill-assorted three had left their ship together, all forced
themselves into the question. This opened the road to a review of
the whole voyage and the change it had wrought in his life. And that
life--what turn would it take on the morrow? What result from the
heart-probing of Lisalda? The singularity was that the more
plausible he painted the future, the darker shaded the present, and
the past, of his sweetheart. He felt it was an insult to her to
question her about that past of which she had denied the recital.
And yet he longed--and how he longed--to rise to her from his very
bed to question her. And her relations with the cabalist--how long
before the voyage she had served him Ataurresagasti never knew, but
apart from that it was gall and wormwood to him that she should even
have shared his state room at sea. The fancy forced itself upon the
sailor that the cabalist--who saw through all things--had seen
through her disguise. The more he turned over the reasons assigned
by Lisalda for the cabalist never sleeping alone, the more unlikely
it appeared that a prince of all the Magi, and tamer of the Demon of
the Ring, should show a side so puny. In spite of his better self
there forced itself upon him another, and quite opposite, picture of
the nights that these two had passed together. Yet why (and here for
a moment he threw off that thraldom) yet why had Lisalda, this
particular evening, apparently willingly exchanged with him the
place, which by that hateful theory she should have found a
pleasance. Again wider issues loomed in every direction, until he
returned again bewildered to what seemed willy-nilly his keynote for
that night. He tossed from side to side. Picture after picture
stood out before his mind's eye, until he even reached the length of
fancying Lisalda at that moment on the other side with the cabalist,
while Ataurresagasti on his side lay befooled. That she could not
have got there by any human means was a difficulty which did not even
occur to him for solution. The sweat stood out thick upon his brow.
He positively saw Lisalda twined about the body of his rival. His
hair (he felt it) was turning grey. He saw the cabalist (a wonder of
satiety) remove that ring of rings from his finger and fit it
jestingly upon hers. At this precise juncture of his nightmare,
Ataurresagasti suddenly started broad awake to his feet. Dream or no
dream--whatever the rest of the night had been--there was certainly
now something awful in progress in the adjoining apartment.
Something (which he instinctively felt was not human) was struggling
for life and death with the luckless cabalist. The hair of the
sailor stood on end. There was no mistake about it this time. Time
had been when he fancied he felt fear, but he knew now that only at
this moment had he learnt its kind. All at once a most terrible
shriek rang out through every corner of the house. Ataurresagasti
dashed the partition into splinters with a blow that would have
shattered steel. He leaped into the room just in time to arrest the
escape of some huge incredible beast, that stood sullenly at bay, in
the strangling streak of dawn. The mystery was solved. Down came
the hanger with an impulse so irresistible that it sheared off a
whole limb of the accursed one. The point of the hanger actually
penetrated so deeply into the flooring that it was a moment of
anxiety (during which his quarry, although maimed, might have bested
him) before Ataurresagasti succeeded in getting it out again. But
when he had recovered it, the animal had disappeared, impossible to
find out how or where. This alone he saw in the imperfect light (or
rather in the imperfect darkness) that the whole room was scattered
from end to end with blood and bones and brain, which was all that
was left of that most unhappy man.
A sickness came upon the victor. He mopped his dripping forehead.
He turned to leave the presence-chamber of death and doom; he picked
up as he did so the severed limb, a casual glance at which confirmed
his general impression that the gaunt game had been but a
particularly large and loathly wolf, such as occasionally penetrated
the precincts of towns in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees.
Ataurresagasti walked down straight into the reception room of the
night before. For the moment the possible alarm of Lisalda at that
terrible shriek of dissolution of the cabalist had not even entered
his mind. His object was to summon Aquelarre. To his surprise he
found him crouching there already white as a ghost apparently with
fear. He sprang to his feet at sight of the sailor, and barely
suppressed a cry. This time it was the sailor that read, and the
landlord's face that provided reading matter. Amazement was writ
legibly in every line of it, and his eyes were opened to the size of
saucers. And Ataurresagasti asked himself, without finding answer,
what connexion all this had with the attempt to drug him, which he
had discovered the preceding evening. The two men stared at one
another for some minutes without finding speech, of which indeed the
innkeeper, at any rate, seemed incapable. The word when taken up was
taken up by Ataurresagasti.
"My pharmaceutical friend seems somewhat upset by my early appearance
after draining the drowsy cup which he compounded for me overnight."
"And it is not natural that a landlord should be fearful for his
slate when he sees an uncancelled score slinking downstairs to the
outlet at such unearthly hour?"
"Alas, for your slate (if that touch you so nearly) a fiscal fleeter
than yourself has attended here this night, and collected your other
lodger's scot."
"What means this matin pleasantry? How goes it with the cabalist?"
"Well, I hope, although I dare not think it well. His reckoning, I
fear, will overreach him."
"Is he dead?"
"As much of him as can still be traced is unquestionably dead."
"That then undid my beauty sleep. I thought I dreamed an unforgetful
shriek."
"'Twas murder mouthed it. God rest his soul, that died in such a
case as he was overtaken in."
"He died, you say, by the hand of God?"
"I say by the limb of a wolf, rather, which I arriving overdue did
incontinently lop from its trunk. The felon then evading by exit to
me invisible, I descended hither by what impulse I scarcely know save
that my intentions tended justiceward."
"You meant perchance to summon authority to certify to cause of
death. But this must be looked to by myself before anyone else is
admitted. What became of the piece of conviction?"
"Behold it!"
"Out upon you! What providence have we here! O perjured windpipe
you are most miraculously self-accused by this mischosen joint! Limb
of a wolf did you dare to say? Nay, behold assassin, to your
confusion, 'tis the disjointed member of your master that you have
brought away with you from the presence chamber."
A cry of horror burst from the palsied lips of the sailor. It was as
Aquelarre stated. Not the hacked-off trophy of his prowess had he
carried in his hand; by some inexplicable equivocation it was the
sundered fist of the cabalist still bearing the ring of the familiar.
Chilled to the marrow by the ghastly riddle Ataurresagasti stammered
some broken of explanation; but the landlord cut him short.
"Hold your peace, rogue (and fool as much as rogue), you have miscast
your account if you think to cope in a game of brag with a man of the
world like Aquelarre. You do but squander breath which you may want
ere long when the hangman ties your cravat. 'Twas then the bauble on
yonder finger whose fatuous fire lured you into slippery sin--I
misfancied even yesternight your gallows visage, that will ere long
grin through a halter: 'twill clog my conscience till the day I die
that I whispered no warning to that gentle sage. But by these five
bones! I will lay no second blood to my debit. Rather than see a
gallant (if misguided) boy turn rope-dancer I will hold the nose of
correction from your trail. But think not that I shall also permit
you to lay that flattering booty to your soul--you must make over to
me the gaud that cozened you to crime. Indeed, if I left it in your
possession, you would never dare to look a clothes-line in the face.
Whereas, never doubt but that I shall make the best possible use of
it, such as I have no time to bethink myself of at the moment.
Masses (perchance) for the soul of its late owner done to death
unofficed by Holy Church. Whatever he would have liked to do for me
had I been slain, and he Aquelarre. Oh, I can promise you a binding
promise of that. But we palter out the time of opportunity. Your
safety lies in instant flight. The Bidassoa lies within easy avail.
Take the bridge that throws over it at Behobia. Once on the Spanish
side of the river, the hemp is not sown that shall throttle you. For
this crime at any rate, I remaining shall run the risk, if risk there
be to run. Quick then with the gewgaw--'tis a dull stone at
best--why do you hesitate when the path divides before you? One way
leads to length of life, the other is a short cut to cordage."
"You son of a burnt witch! The broom-ridden hag that taught you to
spell out the Devil's books, and to find fortunes in hands--past,
present, and future forsooth--she taught you all askew. I have done
no such deeds as your second sight credits me with. The matter
squared precisely with my account of it, but I am fortune's fool, and
in change for my own handiwork I took hold (I know not how) of this
Hand of Glory. In view of the public opinion that whispers you a
wizard I should not exclaim over and above if it turned out to be
your own hocus pocus that brought about the barter. Nay, it is
possible and even probable that the wolf was but a go-between, guided
by a hand not a hundred miles from here (and I spit upon mine that
grasped it in friendship yester-even) but you are seemingly only an
understrapper in the Devil's workshop since you cut only yourself
with your unnecessary tool. We did not do these things by deputy
upon the Spanish Main. Viewed in the light of your press for the
possession of the ring (of whose virtues you apparently believe me to
be ignorant) the riddle of last night's sleeping draught need not
long remain unread. That after stripping you to this nakedness I
should clothe you with the purple and fine linen of the ring would be
too much for any but yourself to expect."
"Cry you mercy! You have signed your own death-warrant. What you
cast in my teeth is guess-work. But you are rivetted hand and foot
to the matter of fact. Pass me the ring and you go free--refuse, and
you shall play the pendulum."
"And would you play the gatesman? Odds my life, and do you think I
dare not go free until Aquelarre lifts the latch? Deputy devil, look
to yourself!"
Aquelarre placed his back to the door. The buccaneer swooped down
upon him with a yell that split the throat of echo. With all his
force he struck him in the face with the abominable relic of the
cabalist. The effect was electric. Aquelarre threw up his arms, and
fell like a log dumb and blind to the ground. The buccaneer wrenched
open the door and disappeared down one of the Four Cross Roads.
(_End of Part I._)