sabbath, mated by priests unfrocked and anathematised, but not in the
sight of gods or men."
"Then she is free, and I shall steal her from him yet. I will marry
her, but I will kill him first."
"You know not what you say. He is swollen in power until he is
acknowledged the master magician of all Germany. It is _whispered_
that he made a pact with Satan, and in pledge thereof exchanged one
of his eyes for an eye of the fiend's. It is _known_ that he walks
abroad with one eye shut until he wishes to perform some evil. Then
he lifts the eyelid and shoots forth a spear of light from that eye
which is not his own. And it blasts whereever it falls. For this
reason we call him the Evil Eye."
"His backbone shall be limp for me, his front abased, his star is
set, his grave is dug, his flesh already rots! I will bury him in a
church that he may hug false hopes of salvation, and then I will set
my feet on his gravestone when I stand with her before the priest.
He shall shriek curses from his coffin while I knit her life to mine,
until the scandalised sacred earth shall spit him forth to those that
lie in wait."
"Unhappy man, you are still dreaming of the girl you left behind! Do
you not realise that, now years have rolled over her, she is a mother
witch? Nay, there is worse that I had hoped to spare you. Did you
not notice the stakes erected outside in the market place? To-day a
host of women, and not a few evil men, are to wipe out their crimes
with the last payment. At this very moment the sad procession is
entering the square. Do you recognise no prisoner among them?"
He threw open the door. It was even as he said. The sailor sprang
to his feet and scanned the accused.
"I do not see him there!"
"Not he, he flies too high for judge or jury, the devil's true
knight, hell sublimate! But look again. Do you not recognise one of
the women?"
With a terrible foreboding Marquard strained his eyes, but saw no
face that corresponded to his memories. They were, without
exception, abominable hags that were to suffer. But one of them had
at once recognised _him_. Recognised him, in spite of the awful
change wrought by his captivity. The foulest beldame of them all
stretched her skinny arms to him. Her cracked voice called his name.
"Marquard!"
An icy hand gripped the galley-slave's heart-strings. In that second
he lived all the years since last he had seen her. He saw (in his
mind's eye) golden hair shade to grey, skin become parchment, roses
and lilies scatter in dust. He recognised her, and he leaped forward
to her like an arrow from a bow. The spectators parted in amaze, to
right and left. Guards and executioners fell back from his foot and
hand. He caught the outstretched hands of the witch in his. He
devoured her with his looks, and she him. He was as one in a dream.
He scarcely felt her press something round into one of his palms.
She whispered so that he alone heard her:--
"Marquard! It is a charm I am giving you that has cost me dear. It
will protect you from all evil, and especially from _him_. As you
love me, never part with it while you live. I dare not wish you well
lest my prayer should blast you. Good-bye, and think sometimes
kindly of me."
He would have retained her, but she drew her fingers away, leaving
with him that globular thing to which he paid no attention. She
kissed him with her eyes. He tried to speak, but words were choked
in sobs. And now the soldiers, both horse and foot, bore down upon
him. A cry of rescue was raised by some of the crowd that were
interested in the prisoners. Others shouted them down, and shook
their fists in Marquard's face. The wildest confusion reigned. His
rags were torn from his back. A hundred blades were thrust into his
flesh. Those that had taken his part pulled him one way, the more
law-abiding citizens pulled him another. His head swam, he lost his
footing, he fell, and was trampled alike by friend and foe, in the
pitched battle that was fought over his body. He lost consciousness,
and knew no more.
When he recovered his painful identity, it was some time before he
could remember what had passed. He was sick, as he fancied, from the
rollings of the galley, and sore from the laying-on of the
taskmaster's whip. It was the possession of a certain ball, which he
still clutched in his palm, which, after he had stared at it for a
while, led him back to truth. When, by degrees, he had recovered his
memory, he tried to make out of what substance it was formed, but
without arriving at any conclusion, he carefully stowed it away. He
was most puzzled by the fact that he was in a room. It was dark, so
that a considerable time must have elapsed. He rose, and felt all
round the walls. There was no doubt about it. Presently he came
upon the door. He tried it. It opened. He was evidently not a
prisoner. He stepped into a passage, and up to another door. This
one was locked, but the key was in it. He turned it, and opening the
door disclosed the square. The mystery was now solved. He was in
the precincts of the tavern. He had been saved, perhaps from death,
by his good friend, the inn-keeper.
The night was magnificently clear. A single star hung low in the ear
of the moon. He looked all around the deserted place that during his
swoon must have been the scene of butcherly justice. The remnants of
the stakes were evidence that the decrees of the law had really been
executed. A few fragments of charred bone were now all that remained
of the girl he had loved. He seemed to scent the odour of burnt
flesh in the air. Suddenly, he became aware that he was not alone in
his contemplation of this field of blood. Some man was ferreting
about the bases of the stakes, and sifting the human dust that paved
the square. It needed no second look to tell the galley-slave who
this was, so much keener than love is hate. It was the man--or more
than man--of whom Marquard had conferred with the inn-keeper. It was
the Hungarian--Teremtette--the Evil Eye.
For what then was he a-search among this life that had ceased to
live? Marquard thought that he could answer this question. The ball
of so much mystery had been given to him by the witch, as a charm
that would protect from this very man. The association of the
Hungarian with her made it probable that he was acquainted with her
possession of it, and with its powers. Such being the case, it was a
property that he must itch to lay his fingers upon. Perhaps he had
even attempted, and failed, to obtain it from her while she was alive
At any rate it was this, presumably, which he was agog for on the
scene of her death. As a charm it would be unconsumable by fire, and
had Marquard not been before him the Hungarian might have attained
his end. The one weak point in the theory was that it supposed the
wizard ignorant of Marquard's return. Yet this was not impossible,
since surely even wizards have their limitations. Having decided
Upon this explanation of his rival's presence, Marquard burned to
confront him face to face. He strode boldly out of his protecting
doorway. The Hungarian heard his step, looked up, and sprang to his
feet. The galley-slave noted with a thrill that one of his eyes was
closed. It was the Evil Eye against which he was soon to test his
powers of endurance. For the wizard had evidently recognised him at
once. His whole face was writhen with diabolical glee. Slowly he
raised the lid that covered the Evil Eye. There was a gush of
blinding light from under that veil. The square was lit up as by
noonday sun. The ray struck remorselessly upon the sailor. He stood
erect unshaken. Astonishment was legible upon the magician's
features at this evident failure of his trusted weapon. He raised
the lid to its fullest extent, and put all he was worth into the
uncanny stare. But the sailor stood erect, unscathed. The charm was
doing the work which its donor had foreseen, and doing that work
right well. The galley-slave registered a vow never to part with it.
Suddenly the magician dropped his eyelid, and the market-place once
more was dark. He had apparently arrived at some decision, for
now--for the first time--he spoke.
"Antlers of Belial!! Do I see before me my old friend Marquard?"
"Your enemy to the hilts you see."
"You must pardon my defective sight which obliged me to call in the
aid of science before I recognised you. Who would have thought of
seeing you here? But now I know you I shall not readily part with
you. You shall sleep under no other roof than mine this night of
your home-coming."
"Dare you speak thus to _me_, knowing that this day the woman we both
loved has died a horrible death at hangman's hands, and all for
following the course _you_ set and staked for her?"
"Nonsense, my friend. You have been deceived by a chance
resemblance, if indeed any could exist between such wrinkles as were
smoothed out to-day and a face that made the stars ashamed. I regret
to say that I have lost sight of her for many a year--that maiden we
both knew and loved; I would give all I have left to give to see her
before me as she was. Her waist was slender as the waist of death--I
cannot conceive her as blue flame and grey ash. Again I say you have
deceived yourself, my friend."
"Friend me no friends! What I feel for you is unscabbarded, naked
hate."
"Death and the judgment! If you do not love me, you _fear_ me,
coward that you are!"
"Were I the crowning coward--the bye-word and mock of cowards--there
would be one man beneath my fear."
"And do you mean that I am that man? I challenge you then to
accompany me to my castle. It is worth the seeing."
"You need not press me. I ask nothing better than your company. You
shall tire of me ere I tire of you. Lead, and I will follow you to
the fringes of the Pit."
"We'll needs ride sabbatical post."
He plucked up two charred logs that lay near at hand. He thrust one
between the knees of the galley-slave and the other between his own.
He uttered a magic word, sharp, pungent, and obeyed. The logs became
two stallions, black as grief and fleet as joy. Before Marquard had
grasped the fact that he was mounted, they were out of the town.
The weather, as we have said, was of the clearest. A train of
obscene hags, bound for some witches' frolic, was the only thing that
rode the night. They passed it and left it easily in their rear.
Their pace, in fact, was a pace to kill. They shook off a mile with
every sweat drop. It took them a second to shoot through a forest.
They cleared, not one river, but twos and threes at a time; the wind,
striving to keep up with them, fell breathless. Huge mountains
tossed their grandsire heads and deemed themselves impassable. These
also the chargers crossed, and left them shrugging their fat
shoulders far behind. But now a peak of peaks appeared--a Babel that
overlooked earth, and peered into heaven--would they double that?
They reached its summit, but at the instant, with a word from the
sorcerer, they were logs again.
Marquard reeled as his feet touched ground. He steadied himself with
an effort, and took a step forward. The Hungarian seized him by the
collar, just in time to save him from a fall. They were standing
upon the edge of a precipice. The sailor looked down and saw no
bottom--a gulf that staggered reason. He shuddered at his escape,
and reeled again. When he had somewhat recovered, he rubbed his
eyes, and took a careful survey of the position.
They had been deposited at the extreme altitude of the mountain. But
it was not a single peak, it formed a ring like the crater of a
volcano, but of a diameter so stupendous that its further side was
barely visible to the naked eye. Of its depth we have already given
some idea, but the most singular feature of the whole strange
place--the feature which made it impossible to regard it as a mere
giant volcano--was a slender spire of rock that shot up from its
unknown floor to about the same height as the surrounding rim. It
might be compared to a Cleopatra's Needle set in a well, or else to
the stamen of some egregious petrified flower. Or from the sailor's
point of view (considering the spot where he stood as mainland) it
was an islet left bare by a dried-up sea. Nor was it a desert
island. It was inhabited, or at any rate it was built upon. There
was a castle on it which it was just large enough to hold. The outer
walls merged straight down as if one piece with the wall of rock upon
which they were founded. From the front entrance, a bridge of
marble, with rails of gold, spanned the abyss that separated the
castle from the mountain.
While Marquard was making these observations, the Hungarian took
stock of him with his single eye. When the sailor had apparently
sucked in all his environment, Teremtette asked him, what seemed on
the face of it, a neediest question.
"What do you see?"
"I see a castle, whiter than a bride, uplift upon yon mast of stone."
"What else do you see?"
"I see a bridge across the airy moat that parts us from that
fantastic crow's nest."
"That castle and that bridge are of my architecture. If you consider
as child's play all that you _have_ dared--if you are willing to
_begin_ to show high courage--you can follow me within its gates."
He walked towards the bridge, crossed it, and disappeared within the
castle walls. The galley slave sat down, and gazed at the fairy
fabric in something very much like indecision. He felt among his
garments to see if he still possessed the talisman, the witch's
parting gift. It was there. He drew it forth and looked at it. A
little shrivelled pellet, of some unknown dried substance, it was as
much of an enigma to him as ever. He laid it upon the rock on which
he sat, and turned again towards the castle. To his horror and
astonishment it was losing its clearness of outline. It
became--along with the bridge--semi-transparent. He could see
through them both. They grew thinner, and thinner. They faded into
little more than mist. Ultimately nothing of either was any more
visible. Only the bare pillar stood up in the midst of the chasm.
But no--there was a figure upon the now tonsured rock--it was the
figure of the Hungarian. A moment's thought explained this. The
castle alone was unsubstantial. In disappearing it left revealed the
man that had been within it. He was too far off for the sailor to be
sure of what he was engaged on. There ran through all Marquard's
veins a current of fear. He felt helpless in the presence of all
this glamour that he did not understand. He looked round for his
only friend--the amulet--thank God! it was still there. He snatched
it up, resolved never more to let it away from him. And then another
wonderful thing occurred. The castle and its bridge again gradually
appeared in sight. The sailor began to suspect the rules of the
game. He could not forbear to put the talisman down again for a
moment. The outlines of the magical buildings grew immediately dim.
He took up the ball. Their solidity was immediately restored. He
now knew his bearings. There could be no longer any doubt. Apart
from their creator--the Hungarian--the castle and bridge were only
visible to the holder of that wizened trifle. Marquard packed it
away, with heightened respect, and deliberately walked up to, and
across, the bridge. It rang substantial enough under his feet, for
him to almost doubt the truth of what he had just seen. He was too
near his enemy to hazard any more experiments. He found him in a
goodly, square, and most singularly wall-papered room, inasmuch as
each of its walls--where not pierced for a door--was one vast mirror.
In the centre stood a table loaded with every delicacy in and out of
season. At each side of the table was placed a luxurious chair. The
Hungarian pointed to one of these and spoke.
"I bid you to this last supper, in the name of those that hold this
house, if you dare sit down and feast."
"I dare do anything in _your_ company."
"Then eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow one of us two dies.
That, I believe, was the intention, with which you accompanied me
hither?"
"You are right therein, as always."
"Then for an hour we will proclaim a truce to all our differences.
We will pledge the survivor in flowing bowls from vintages of a
thousand years. Wine you shall have creating thirst and woman
creating desire. That is if you can call her woman that tempted Adam
out of Paradise."
"To whom do you refer?"
"To Lilith, Eve's rival, queen of all damnations!"
"Was it for _her_, then, that you sold your soul and swopped an eye
with Satan?"
"Ha-ha, you have heard that story. It is true that I left my eye in
pawn, but it is false that I received one in exchange. This is not
an eye at all--this Evil Eye as they call it--whose beam is supposed
to blight wherever it falls. In your own person you have tested its
perfect harmlessness."
He paused, as if to see whether the sailor had swallowed this more
than doubtful statement. The latter made no sign. The wizard then
proceeded to lift his sinister eyelid, until the fiery stab of the
Evil Eye was a second time unveiled. As before it had no effect
whatever on Marquard. The magician then lifted his finger to it, and
with a twist turned the apparent eye-ball out of its socket. It
slipped over the finger that had released it, and in so doing shewed
what it really was. It was a _ring_, set with an enormous blazing
stone!
Yes, this was the fabled Evil Eye, this innocent circlet of gold with
its flashing stone. The magician obligingly extended the hand that
now wore it, to the end that Marquard might examine it more minutely.
As he got accustomed to its baleful glare, he perceived that this was
not generated by the gem itself. The gem was hollow, and served
merely as a receptacle for something _alive_ that crouched within.
From the eyes of this living weevil--or devil--or whatever it
was--streamed the poison of ill-effect which the public had thought
to proceed from an Evil Eye. Nor were they wrong after all, only
that there were two evil eyes, and their owner to boot--instead of
one. But even this was only the beginning of the Hungarian's
surprises. Having allowed the sailor to gaze long enough upon the
ring, he rested the hand that wore it upon a chair. Then with the
other hand he just touched the gem at his side. It flew open and the
creature that lived in it came forth. She increased in size--the
sailor saw that it was a woman--a woman, whose beauty would have
blinded the severest eye. She would have seduced an anchorite to
dimpled sin.
"You see," laughed the Hungarian, "that, if I got no eye from the
devil, he gave me a rib out of his side."
When she had reached the height of her companion Lilith stopped
growing, and sat down upon her chair. The magician seated himself at
one hand of her, the sailor at the other, and looked inquiringly
towards the vacant place that fronted her. The Hungarian intercepted
his glance, and grinned.
"Look at the mirror, man," he cried, "there are more guests here--and
more august--than you imagine."
The galley-slave looked at the mirror behind the vacant side of the
table, and started from his seat in sudden terror. The mirror
reflected the back of someone as if occupying that chair, which
nevertheless still stood in front of it, empty. The sailor looked
from chair to mirror--from mirror to chair again--but there was no
mistaking that weird fact. His hair stood up. He sank into his
seat. He snatched to his white lips the first goblet that came to
hand. The magician at once took up his own glass and cried out,
mockingly,
"I second your toast! To the health of our guest--the Orb and
Sceptre of all the hells!"
From that the orgie waxed fast and furious. They swam in music. The
room was grey with incense. Their lights were balls of coloured fire
that flashed in the air, and ever and anon dropping into their cups
hissed like snapdragons. Songs were sung that fallen angels had
brought from paradise. Tales were told of doings done before the
world was planned. But who sung, and who narrated was beyond the
sailor's ken, a-swim as he was with wine and witchery. He grew more
and more bemused. The table whirled round and round. The viands
slipped away from his hands, when he turned to look at his fair
neighbour he could only find the one eye of the Hungarian. The
mirrors gave back distortions. All was confusion and delusion, and
mocking laughter in his ears. After a brave attempt to keep his
head, he rolled upon the floor. The vintages of a thousand years had
done their work.
When he awoke, with a splitting headache, the room was clear. The
Hungarian paced up and dawn at one end. A glance at him sufficed to
show that the matchless ring had been restored to its socket.
"Ha-ha," laughed the sorcerer, "are you looking for the girl you were
so sweet on last night? Behold her!" He lifted his eyelid, and
there flashed forth coquettish lights from the prisoner of the gem.
The sailor sprang to his feet.
"Arch and unheard-of juggler," he cried, "your play is played, and
your curtain is nigh to ringing down. You have done the devil's
work--beshrew the like!--and you shall get the devil's wages. You
shall rue the day you brought me here."
"The nightmare be your bride! Were you not girt with an adverse fate
you had dawned in a fiercer place than this! And now, if you are
bent upon a duel--and the laws of hospitality do not protect me--I
will even let you take the lead."
"Then look to yourself, witch-master!" cried the sailor, drawing a
rusty pistol from his long sea-boot. He took aim, and fired; the
bullet struck the Hungarian, and _rebounded_. A peal of laughter
shook the hall.
"The devil kiss your lips!" cried the sorcerer; "you have no reach
for me! But try again if you like before I set my foot on the neck
of your revenge."
The sailor considered. It was no use wasting another leaden bullet
on a man who was evidently impregnable to such. He remembered that a
silver button cut from one's coat was considered sovereign against a
wizard when all else failed. But, unfortunately, Marquard wore no
silver buttons, and very few buttons of any kind. An idea struck
him, there was the magic ball that the witch had given him. It was
true that, if it flew wide of its mark, he would have staked, and
lost, his all; since he would no longer boast any influence to
protect him. On the other hand, he felt a presentiment that it would
not fail him. In any case the sorcerer, who was aware by this time
of his possession of the talisman, seemed, from his good humour, to
have forged some device by which he could counteract it. Marquard
threw his scruples to the wind, and rammed the amulet into the pistol.
"I will bring your royal insolence a-dust," he cried, "in hackneyed,
unoriginal death for all that you are the devil's fetch and carry!"
He fired. Thunder shook the furthest stars. The room was full of
fœtid smoke. As it partially cleared away, the galley-slave saw
his enemy lying supine upon the ground. He crept up to him, still
misdoubting, and touched him gingerly. He was dead. But when
Marquard came to look upon his face, he started back surprised, all
trace of the ring had entirely disappeared. Both the sorcerer's eyes
were open, and both were now a match. But whence had come back this
long-lost eye? It was the ball which the witch had handed over to
Marquard--the ball which Marquard had loaded into his pistol--the
ball which had steered unerring to its ancient seat, and ousted the
usurper which it found there. Marquard reverently lifted the fallen
pride of wizardry and carried him gently to the outer gate. This man
upon whom he had served the warrant of that bowelless
catch-poll--Death, this clay, after all was said and done, had once
been boyhood like himself. Lovers of one girl the tunes of their two
lives were built upon the same bottom note. It was with tenderness
that Marquard tossed the body into the abyss. He did not know how
soon he was to follow it. It had scarcely disappeared when he became
aware from the thinning of the castle that he had unwittingly got rid
of the power which enabled him to cross the bridge. The golden
railing had already vanished. He started to run, but the marble
under his feet was softening, and he sank in it to the ankles at
every step. A little further and his legs went through to the knee.
With incredible exertions he reached the centre, but could go no
further. He floundered in the fast ebbing material, hopelessly, to
the waist. Then he sank to his armpits--spread out his arms so as to
hold yet a second to life--but finally the last remnants of the
bridge evaporated, and he fell plumb into the gulf, turning over and
over in his fall.
THE WITCHES' SABBATH.
Our scene is one of those terrific peaks set apart by tradition as
the trysting place of wizards and witches, and of every kind of folk
that prefers dark to day.
It might have been Mount Elias, or the Brocken, associated with
Doctor Faustus. It might have been the Horsel or Venusberg of
Tannhaeuser, or the Black Forest. Enough that it was one of these.
Not a star wrinkled the brow of night. Only in the distance the
twinkling lights of some town could be seen. Low down in the skirts
of the mountain rode a knight, followed closely by his page. We say
a knight, because he had once owned that distinction. But a wild and
bloody youth had tarnished his ancient shield; the while it kept
bright and busy his ancestral sword. Behold him now, little better
than a highwayman. Latterly he had wandered from border to border,
without finding where to rest his faithful steed. All authority was
in arms against him; Hageck, the wild knight, was posted throughout
Germany. More money was set upon his head than had ever been put
into his pocket. Pikemen and pistoliers had dispersed his following.
None remained to him whom he could call his own, save this stripling
who still rode sturdily at the tail of his horse. Him also, the
outlaw had besought, even with tears, to abandon one so ostensibly
cursed by stars and men. But in vain. The boy protested that he
would have no home, save in his master's shadow.
They were an ill-assorted pair. The leader was all war-worn and
weather-worn. Sin had marked him for its own and for the wages of
sin. The page was young and slight, and marble pale. He would have
looked more at home at the silken train of some great lady, than
following at these heels from which the gilded spurs had long been
hacked. Nevertheless, the music of the spheres themselves sings not
more sweetly in accord than did these two hearts.
The wild knight, Hageck, had ascended the mountain as far as was
possible to four-legged roadsters. Therefore he reined in his horse
and dismounted, and addressed his companion. His voice was now quite
gentle, which on occasion could quench mutiny, and in due season dry
up the taste of blood in the mouths of desperate men.
"Time is that we must part, Enno."
"Master, you told me we need never part."
"Let be, child, do you not understand me? I hope with your own
heart's hope that we shall meet again to-morrow in this same tarrying
place. But I have not brought you to so cursed a place without some
object. When I say that we must part, I mean that you must take
charge of our horses while I go further up the mountain upon
business, which for your own sake you must never share."
"And is this your reading of the oath of our brotherhood which we
swore together?"
"The oath of our brotherhood, I fear, was writ in water. You are, in
fact, the only one of all my company that has kept faith with me.
For that very reason I would not spare your neck from the halter, nor
your limbs from the wheel. But also for that very reason I will not
set your immortal soul in jeopardy."
"My immortal soul! Is this business then unhallowed that you go
upon? Now I remember me that this mountain at certain seasons is
said to be haunted by evil spirits. Master, you also are bound by
our path to tell me all."
"You shall know all, Enno, were oaths even cheaper than they are.
You have deserved by your devotion to be the confessor of your
friend."
"Friend is no name for companionship such as ours. I am sure you
would die for me. I believe I could die for you, Hageck."
"Enough, you have been more than brother to me. I had a brother
once, after the fashion of this world, and it is his envious hand
which has placed me where I stand. That was before I knew you, Enno,
and it is some sweets in my cup at any rate, that had he not betrayed
me I should never have known you. Nevertheless, you will admit that
since he robbed me of the girl I loved, even your loyal heart is a
poor set off for what fate and fraternity took from me. In fine, we
both loved the same girl, but she loved me, and would have none of my
brother. She was beautiful, Enno--how beautiful you can never guess
that have not yet loved."
"I have never conceived any other love than that I bear you."
"Tush, boy, you know not what you say. But to return to my story.
One day that I was walking with her my brother would have stabbed me.
She threw herself between and was killed upon my breast."
He tore open his clothes at the throat and showed a great faded stain
upon his skin.
"The hangman's brand shall fade," he cried, "ere that wash out.
Accursed be the mother that bore me seeing that she also first bore
him! The devil squat down with him in his resting, lie with him in
his sleeping, as the devil has sat and slept with me every noon and
night since that deed was done. Never give way to love of woman,
Enno, lest you lose the one you love, and with her lose the balance
of your life."
"Alas! Hageck, I fear I never shall."
"Since that miscalled day, blacker than any night, you know as well
as any one the sort of death in life I led. I had the good or evil
luck to fall in with some broken men like myself, fortune's foes and
foes of all whom fortune cherishes, you among them. Red blood, red
gold for a while ran through our fingers. Then a turn of the wheel,
and, presto, my men are squandered to every wind that blows--I am a
fugitive with a price upon my head!"
"And with one comrade whom, believe me, wealth is too poor to buy."
"A heart above rubies. Even so. To such alone would I confide my
present purpose. You must know that my brother was a student of
magic of no mean repute, and before we quarrelled had given me some
insight into its mysteries. Now that I near the end of my tether I
have summed up all the little I knew, and am resolved to make a
desperate cast in this mountain of despair. In a word, I intend to
hold converse with my dead sweetheart before I die. The devil shall
help me to it for the love he bears me."
"You would invoke the enemy of all mankind?"
"Him and none other. Aye, shudder not, nor seek to turn me from it.
I have gone over it again and again. The gates of Hell are set no
firmer than this resolve."
"God keep Hell far from you when you call it!"
"I had feared my science was of too elementary an order to conduct an
exorcism under any but the most favourable circumstances. Hence our
journey hither. This place is one of those where parliaments of evil
are held, where dead and living meet on equal ground. To-night is
the appointed night of one of these great Sabbaths. I propose to
leave you here with the horses. I shall climb to the topmost peak,
draw a circle that I may stand in for my defence, and with all the
vehemence of love deferred, pray for my desire."
"May all good angels speed you!"
"Nay, I have broken with such. Your good wish, Enno, is enough."
"But did we not hear talk in the town about a hermit that spent his
life upon the mountain top, atoning for some sin in day-long prayer
and mortification? Can this evil fellowship of which you speak still
hold its meetings upon a spot which has been attached in the name of
Heaven by one good man?"
"Of this hermit I knew nothing until we reached the town. It was
then too late to seek another workshop. Should what you say be
correct, and this holy man have purged this plague spot, I can do no
worse than pass the night with him, and return to you. But should
the practices of witch and wizard continue as of yore, then the
powers of evil shall draw my love to me, be she where she may. Aye,
be it in that most secret nook of heaven where God retires when He
would weep, and where even archangels are never suffered to tread."
"O all good go with you!"
"Farewell, Enno, and if I never return count my soul not so lost but
what you may say a prayer for it now and again, when you have
leisure."
"I will not outlive you!"
The passionate words were lost on Hageck, who had already climbed so
far as to be out of hearing. He only knew vaguely that something was
shouted to him, and waved his hand above his head for a reply. On
and on he climbed. Time passed. The way grew harder. At last
exhausted, but fed with inward exaltation, he reached the summit. It
was of considerable extent and extremely uneven. The first thing our
hero noticed was the cave of the hermit. It could be nothing else,
although it was closed with an iron door. A new departure, thought
Hageck to himself, as he hammered upon it with the pommel of his
sword, for a hermit's cell to be locked in like a fortress.
"Open, friend," he cried, "in heaven's name, or in that of the other
place if you like it better."
The noise came from within of a bar being removed. The door opened.
It revealed a mere hole in the rock, though large enough, it is true,
to hold a considerable number of persons. Furniture was conspicuous
by its absence. There was no sign even of a bed, unless a coffin
that grinned in one corner served the occupant's needs. A skull, a
scourge, a crucifix, a knife for his food, what more does such a
hermit want? His feet were bare, his head was tonsured, but his
eyebrows were long and matted, and fell like a screen over burning
maniacal eyes. A fanatic, every inch of him. He scrutinised the
invader from top to toe. Apparently the result was unsatisfactory.
He frowned.
"A traveller," said he, "and at this unholy hour. Back, back, do you
not know the sinister reputation of this time and place?"
"I know your reputation to be of the highest, reverend father; I
could not credit what rumour circulates about this mountain top when
I understood that one of such sanctity had taken up a perpetual abode
here."
"My abode is fixed here for the very reason that it is a realm of
untold horror. My task is to win back, if I can, to the dominion of
the church this corner, which has been so long unloved that it cries
aloud to God and man. This position of my own choice is no sinecure.
Hither at stated times the full brunt of the Sabbath sweeps to its
rendezvouz. Here I defy the Sabbath. You see that mighty door?"
"I had wondered, but feared to ask, what purpose such a barrier could
serve in such a miserable place."
"You may be glad to crouch behind it if you stay here much longer.
At midnight, Legion, with all the swirl of all the hells at his back,
will sweep this summit like a tornado. Were you of the stuff that
never trembles, yet you shall hear such sounds as shall melt your
backbone. Avoid hence while there is yet time."
"But you, if you remain here, why not I?"
"I remain here as a penance for a crime I did, a crime which almost
takes prisoner my reason, so different was it from the crime I set
out to do, so deadly death to all my hopes. I am on my knees
throughout the whole duration of this pandemonium that I tell you of,
and count thick and fast my beads during the whole time. Did I cease
for one second to pray, that second would be my last. The roof of my
cavern would descend and efface body and soul. But you, what would
you do here?"
"I seek my own ends, for which I am fully prepared. To confer with a
shade from the other world I place my own soul in jeopardy. For the
short time that must elapse, before the hour arrives when I can work,
I ask but a trifle of your light and fire."
"The will-o'-the-wisp be your light, Saint Anthony's your fire! Do
you not recognise me?"
The wild knight bent forward and gazed into the hermit's inmost eye,
then started back, and would have fallen had his head not struck the
iron door. This recalled him to his senses, and after a moment he
stood firm again, and murmured between his teeth, "My brother!"
"Your brother," repeated the holy man, "your brother, whose
sweetheart you stole and drove me to madness and crime."
"I drove you to no madness, I drove you to no crime. The madness,
the crime you expiate here, were all of your own making. She loved
me, and me alone--you shed her blood, by accident I confess, yet you
shed it, and not all the prayers of your lifetime can gather up one
drop of it. What soaked into my own brain remains there for ever,
though I have sought to wash it out with an ocean of other men's
blood."
"And I," replied the hermit, and he tore his coarse frock off his
shoulders, "I have sought to drown it with an ocean of my own."
He spoke truth. Blood still oozed from his naked flesh, ploughed
into furrows by the scourge.
"You, that have committed so many murders," he continued, "and who
have reproached me so bitterly for one, all the curses of your dying
victims, all the curses I showered upon you before I became reformed
have not availed to send you yet to the gibbet or to the wheel. You
are one that, like the basil plant, grows ever the rifer for cursing.
I remember I tried to lame you, after you left home, by driving a
rusty nail into one of your footsteps, but the charm refused to work.
You were never the worse for it that I could hear. They say the
devil's children have the devil's luck. Yet some day shall death
trip up your heels."
"Peace, peace," cried the wild horseman, "let ill-will be dead
between us, and the bitterness of death be passed, as befits your
sacred calling. Even if I see her for one moment to-night, by the
aid of the science you once taught me, will you not see her for
eternity in heaven some near day?"
"In heaven," cried the hermit, "do I want to see her in heaven? On
earth would I gladly see her again and account that moment cheap if
weighed against my newly discovered soul! But that can never be.
Not the art you speak of, not all the dark powers which move men to
sin, can restore her to either of us as she was that day. And she
loved you. She died to save you. You have nothing to complain of.
But to me she was like some chaste impossible star."
"I loved her most," muttered the outlaw.
"You loved her most," screamed the hermit. "Hell sit upon your eyes!
Put it to the test. Look around. Do you see anything of her here?"
The other Hageck gazed eagerly round the cave, but without fixing
upon anything.
"I see nothing," he was forced to confess.
The hermit seized the skull and held it in front of his eyes.
"This is her dear head," he cried, "fairer far than living red and
white to me!"
The wild knight recoiled with a gasp of horror, snatched the ghastly
relic from the hand of his brother, and hurled it over the precipice.
He put his fingers over his eyes and fell to shaking like an aspen.
For a moment the hermit scarcely seemed to grasp his loss. Then with
a howl of rage he seized his brother by the throat.
"You have murdered her," he shrieked in tones scarcely recognisable,
"she will be dashed to a hundred pieces by such a fall!"
He threw the outlaw to the ground and, retreating to his cave,
slammed the door behind him, but his heart-broken sobs could still be
heard distinctly. It was very evident that he was no longer in his
right mind. The wild knight rose somewhat painfully and limped to a
little distance where he perceived a favourable spot for erecting his
circle. The sobbing of the crazed hermit presently ceased. He was
aware that his rival had entered upon his operations! The hermit
re-opened his door that he might more clearly catch the sound of what
his foe was engaged upon. Every step was of an absorbing interest to
the solitary as to the man who made it. Anon the hermit started to
his feet. He fancied he heard another voice replying to his brother.
Yes, it was a voice he seemed to know. He rushed out of the cave. A
girlish figure clad in a stained dress was clasped in his brother's
arms. Kiss after kiss the wild knight was showering upon brow, and
eye, and cheek, and lip. The girl responded as the hermit had surely
seen her do once before. He flew to his cave. He grasped the knife
he used for his food. He darted like an arrow upon the startled
pair. The woman tried to throw herself in front of her lover, but
the hermit with a coarse laugh, "Not twice the dagger seeks the same
breast," plunged it into the heart of her companion. The wild knight
threw up his arms and without a cry fell to the ground. The girl
uttered a shriek that seemed to rive the skies and flung herself
across her dead. The hermit gazed at it stupidly and rubbed his
eyes. He seemed like one dazed, but slowly recovering his senses.
Suddenly he started, came as it were to himself, and pulled the girl
by the shoulder.
"We have not a minute to lose," he cried, "the great Sabbath is all
but due. If his body remains out here one second after the stroke of
twelve, his soul will be lost to all eternity. It will be snatched
by the fiends who even now are bound to it. Do you not see yon
shadowy hosts--but I forget, you are not a witch."
"I see nothing," she replied, sullenly, rising up and peering round.
The night was clear, but starless.
"I have been a wizard," he answered, "and once a wizard always a
wizard, though I now fight upon the other side. Take my hand and you
will see."
She took his hand, and screamed as she did so. For at the instant
there became visible to her these clouds of loathsome beings that
were speeding thither from every point of the compass. Warlock, and
witch, and wizard rode post on every conceivable graceless mount.
Their motion was like the lightning of heaven, and their varied
cries--owlet hoot, caterwaul, dragon-shout--the horn of the Wild
Hunter, and the hurly of risen dead--vied with the bay of Cerberus to
the seldseen moon. A forest of whips was flourished aloft. The
whirr of wings raised dozing echoes. The accustomed mountain shook
and shivered like a jelly, with the fear of their onset.
The girl dropped his hand and immediately lost the power of seeing
them. She had learned at any rate that what he said was true.
"Help me to carry the body to the cave," cried he, and in a moment it
was done. The corpse was placed in the coffin of his murderer. Then
the hermit crashed his door to its place. Up went bolts and bars.
Some loose rocks that were probably the hermit's chairs and tables
were rolled up to afford additional security.
"And now," demanded the man, "now that we have a moment of breathing
space, tell me what woman-kind are you whom I find here with my
brother? That you are not her I know (woe is me that I have good
reason to know) yet you are as like her as any flower that blows. I
loved her, and I murdered her, and I have the right to ask, who and
what are you that come to disturb my peace?"
"I am her sister."
"Her sister! Yes, I remember you. You were a child in those days.
Neither I nor my brother (God rest his soul!), neither of us noticed
you."
"No, he never took much notice of me. Yet I loved him as well as she
did."
"You, too, loved him," whispered the hermit, as if to himself; "what
did he do to be loved by two such women?"
"Yes, I loved him, though he never knew it, but I may confess it now,
for you are a priest of a sort, are you not, you that shrive with
steel?"
"You are bitter, like your sister. She was always so with me."
"I owe you my story," she replied more gently; "when she died and he
fell into evil courses and went adrift with bad companions, I found I
could not live without him, nor with anyone else, and I determined to
become one of them. I dressed in boy's clothes and sought enlistment
into his company of free lances. He would have driven me from him,
saying it was no work for such as I, yet at last I wheedled it from
him. I think there was something in my face (all undeveloped as it
was and stained with walnut juice) that reminded him of her he had
lost. I followed him faithfully through good and evil, cringing for
a look or word from him. We were at last broken up (as you know) and
I alone of all his sworn riders remained to staunch his wounds. He
brought me hither that he might wager all the soul that was left to
him on the chance of evoking her spirit. I had with me the dress my
sister died in, that I had cherished through all my wanderings, as my
sole reminder of her life and death. I put it on after he had left
me, and followed him as fast as my strength would allow me. My
object was to beguile him with what sorry pleasure I could, while at
the same time saving him from committing the sin of disturbing the
dead. God forgive me if there was mixed with it the wholly selfish
yearning to be kissed by him once, only once, in my true character as
loving woman, rid of my hated disguise! I have had my desire, and it
has turned to apples of Sodom on my lips. You are right. All we can
do now is to preserve his soul alive."
She fell on her knees beside the coffin. The hermit pressed his
crucifix into her hands.
"Pray!" he cried, and at the same moment the distant clock struck
twelve. There came a rush of feet, a thunder at the iron door, the
cave rocked like a ship's cabin abruptly launched into the trough of
a storm. An infernal whooping and hallooing filled the air outside,
mixed with it imprecations that made the strong man blanch. The
banner of Destruction was unfurled. All the horned heads were upon
them. Thrones and Dominions, Virtues, Princes, Powers. All hell was
loose that night, and the outskirts of Hell.
The siege had begun. The hermit told his beads with feverish
rapidity. One Latin prayer after another rolled off his tongue in
drops of sweat. The girl, to whom these were unintelligible, tried
in vain to think of prayers. All she could say, as she pressed the
Christ to her lips, was "Lord of my life! My Love." She scarcely
heard the hurly-burly that raged outside. Crash after crash
resounded against the door, but good steel tempered with holy water
is bad to beat. Showers of small pieces of rock fell from the
ceiling and the cave was soon filled with dust. Peals of hellish
cachinnation resounded after each unsuccessful attempt to break down
that defence. Living battering rams pressed it hard, dragon's spur,
serpent's coil, cloven hoof, foot of clay. Tall Iniquities set their
backs to it, names of terror, girt with earthquake. All the swart
crew dashed their huge bulk against it, rakehelly riders, humans and
superhumans, sin and its paymasters. The winds well nigh split their
sides with hounding of them on. Evil stars in their courses fought
against it. The seas threw up their dead. Haunted houses were no
more haunted that night. Graveyards steamed. Gibbets were empty.
The ghoul left his half-gnawn corpse, the vampire his victim's
throat. Buried treasures rose to earth's surface that their ghostly
guardians might swell the fray. Yet the hermit prayed on, and the
woman wept, and the door kept its face to the foe. Will the hour of
release never strike? Crested Satans now lead the van. Even steel
cannot hold out for ever against those in whose veins instead of
blood, runs fire. At last it bends ever so little, and the devilish
hubbub is increased tenfold.
"Should they break open the door--" yelled the hermit, making a
trumpet of his hands, yet she could not hear what he shouted above
the abominable din, nor had he time to complete his instructions.
For the door did give, and that suddenly, with a clang that was heard
from far off in the town, and made many a burgher think the last
trump had come. The rocks that had been rolled against the door flew
off in every direction, and a surging host--and the horror of it was
that they were invisible to the girl--swept in.
The hermit tore his rosary asunder, and scattered the loose beads in
the faces of the fiends.
"Hold fast the corpse!" he yelled, as he was trampled under foot, and
this time he made himself heard. The girl seized the long hair of
her lover pressed it convulsively, and swooned.
Years afterwards (as it seemed to her) she awakened and found the
chamber still as death, and--yes--this was the hair of death which
she still clutched in her dead hand. She kissed it a hundred times
before it brought back to her where she was and what had passed. She
looked round then for the hermit. He, poor man, was lying as if also
dead. But when she could bring herself to release her hoarded
treasure, she speedily brought him to some sort of consciousness. He
sat up, not without difficulty, and looked around. But his mind,
already halfway to madness, had been totally overturned by what had
occurred that woeful night.
"We have saved his soul between us," she cried. "What do I not owe
you for standing by me in that fell hour?"
He regarded her in evident perplexity. "I cannot think how you come
to be wearing that blood-stained dress of hers," was all he replied.
"I have told you," she said, gently, "but you have forgotten that I
cherished it through all my wanderings as my sole memento of her
glorious death. She laid down the last drop of her blood for him.
She chose the better part. But I! my God! what in the world is to
become of me?"
"I had a memento of her once," he muttered. "I had her beautiful
head, but I have lost it."
"That settles it," she said, "you shall cut off mine."
"THE DEVIL'S DEBT."
Somewhere about the Middle Ages--somewhere in a mediaeval
town---there lived a man who walked always on the shady side of the
way. None of his neighbours could have assigned a reason why he
should only tread where the lapse of time leaves no trace on the
dial, yet so it was. None had ever seen him in sunshine.
This man was known by the name of Porphyro, though we may reasonably
doubt if it was given to him in baptism. For he belonged to a class
that baptised toads by night at their Sabbaths in mockery of the
baptism of babes by day. In a word, Porphyro was a wizard, and for
one circumstance (which will presently be mentioned) was perhaps
better known among his like than any practiser of the Black Art
before or since.
There was, and likely enough still is, in Europe a University of the
occult sciences, buried underground, carved out of the roots of
mountains, far from the hum of men. Here taught weird
professors--eerie, eldritch, elflocked. Here came weird students to
tread the intoxicating wine-press of magical study. Your true wizard
is set apart from birth by some particularity which bespeaks his
vocation. To the University came representatives of every class
which felt this call. Here was the demoniac and the stigmatic, the
abortion and the albino, the hermaphrodite and the changeling, the
hag-ridden and the pixy-led, sleep-walker, Cesarean, Sunday-child,
seventh son, and he that is born with the caul. This motley crew was
of as many hues as there are ends of the earth. Many tongued as
Mithridates, all wrote their notes by common consent in the lingua
angelorum.
The University boasted a laboratory of at least a hundred paces in
length and proportionately broad and high. A mock sun gave it cold
light by day, and a mock moon by night. Here experiments in exorcism
were conducted, of course under the strictest supervision of the
principals. Here the students learned that the ghosts of dead men
(having, always some of the old Adam that was unpurged from them),
are easier to call back to us than elemental spirits can be wrenched
from their eternal spheres. The most trivial task (and therefore
that of the junior classes), was to re-incarnate some suicide, set in
four cross roads, whose soul still hovered like a noxious gas about
the only body where it could hope to find toleration. The pupils
were very properly forbidden to incur the danger of repeating these
experiments in private. Nevertheless something of the kind went on
under the rose. As a rule the novices (and these were after all the
lucky ones), ignominiously failed in their attempts to storm the
outworks of hell. They knew how to call spirits from the vasty deep,
but the spirits refused to come when they did call them. One youth,
however, boasted that he had raised the devil, or at any rate, a
devil He described him to his bosom friends nearly as follows:--
"A great and full stature, soft and phlegmatic, of colour like a
black obscure cloud, having a swollen countenance, with eyes red and
full of water, a bald head, and teeth like a wild boar."
One of the listeners, doubtless jealous, attempted to cheapen this
success of his companion, by remarking that an exorcist, if worth his
salt, should be able to make the spirit appear in what guise he chose.
"Then, by the belt of Venus," swore a third, "I would command it to
appear as a lovely girl, with longer hair and smaller feet than any
on this top which the Almighty set spinning and dubbed earth."
Another poor fellow appears to have been so inflamed with the
suggestion of this rustler, that he tried to bring it into the sphere
of practical politics. He was never seen alive again. Not answering
to his name at the roll-call next morning, his bedroom was visited,
and a thin trickle of blood found oozing under the door. One of the
search party put a pistol to the lock and fired. The door flew open.
A cry burst from all present, and some of the youngest, covering
their faces with their hands, fled. The body of the devoted wretch
who had played with unholy fire, was scattered parcel meal about the
room. The lopped limbs were twisted round into spirals as if
boneless. One of stronger stomach than the rest of the onlookers,
and who examined them more closely, declared that the bone had melted
and run out under some incredible heat. One of the teachers opined
that if the demon had only breathed upon the bone, it would have been
enough to fuse it. There were no more experiments in students' rooms.
Apart from such accidental deaths, the Academy paid a regular yearly
rent of one living soul to hell, and woe unto teachers and taught had
they lapsed into arrear one day. The victim who was to suffer, that
the rest might live and learn, was selected in the following
traditional manner. The whole of the pupils toed a line at one
extreme end of the hall, and, at a given signal, raced to the
opposite door. There was, as may be imagined, a terrible struggle to
pass through the hangings. The last to cross the threshold was
hugged to hell by the awaiting fiend. It was on such an occasion
that Porphyro earned the unique distinction, alluded to above, of
having successfully cozened the Prince of Darkness himself. Strain
as he might, he was the last to touch the winning post. His
competitors, who now breathed themselves in safety in the lobby, had
given him up for lost. But no piercing shriek of dissolution stabbed
the air, no fiendish laughter made horrible the echoes. Instead,
voices were heard, until presently their comrade rejoined those who
had already mourned him. Amid a scene of the wildest excitement, he
was dragged into the light. Something unprecedented must obviously
have occurred. His hair had turned snowy white. Those fell back who
looked first into his eyes, for they saw in them reflected the face
of Hell himself. The tale which Porphyro told them was in substance
this, that when he arrived last at the curtains, and already felt the
breath of punishment upon his cheek, there occurred to him one
loophole of escape. He turned desperately at bay, like hunted
quarry, and roundly told the scrutineer that all he could claim by
the letter of his bond was Porphyro's shadow. That was the last
living thing which passed out of the lists; and not Porphyro, who
preceded it. Strange as it may seem, after a few heated words, the
justice of this quibble was acknowledged by the father of all such
juggleries. He bore off the shadow with a sort of smile, that was
more terrible than men's frown, and lo and behold! when the
schoolfellows, with one accord, looked down at the feet of him who
had so miraculously escaped the infernal maw, they saw that Porphyro
was, as he ever afterwards remained, shadowless. And now our readers
can guess why our hero walked always on the shady side of the way.
Nothing had ever been known (even in circles like this) so
successfully daring as this piece of evasion. Round and round the
whole round globe, by means only known to wizards, the news sped fast
to all the wizard world. It was proclaimed at every Sabbath, from
Blockula to the Brocken. The Lapland witch whispered it to the
Finland witch, as they sat tying up wind after wind in knots for
their seafaring customers. The Druids of Carnac knew it, and the
Persian devil worshippers. The Shamans of Siberia made a song of it
and beat their magic drums thereto. The magicians of Egypt pictured
it in their mirrors of ink. The African Obi men washed their great
fetish in the blood of a thousand virgins, and sent it as a present,
over the desert sands, to Porphyro. Even the medicine men heard of
it in the heart of an undiscovered continent, and emblazoned it upon
the walls of their medicine lodge. Everyone foresaw a brilliant
career for Porphyro. They fully expected him to disembowel Hell.
The reverse was what really happened. Instead of swinging himself at
once to the top round of the ladder, he showed no disposition to
trouble himself at all. He opened a private office in the town
referred to at the beginning of our story, and carried on a private
business in magic of the whitest kind. For him no monster
evocations, with a million demons at his beck and call, like the
Sicilian whom Benvenuto Cellini employed to conjure for him in the
Coliseum. Porphyro refused in the most stiff-necked manner to
exorcise on any terms for anyone. He confined himself solely to
pettyfogging business, such as writing talismans, and reckoning magic
squares, drawing horoscopes, and casting schemes of geomancy,
poisoning rivals for lovers, or close-fisted relatives for
spendthrift heirs. Need we state in black and white the reason
(concealed from everyone else), why he held his hand from higher
things? Oh, the humiliation of it! He was afraid! Yes, Porphyro
was afraid, even he, who had plucked a hair from the devil's beard,
for that very reason he was afraid. He had saved his soul alive,
losing only a shadow of little moment to him, but in return, he had
incurred the eternal enmity of one whose grudge had once shaken the
high heavens. The general adversary of all mankind was first and
beyond all things most ferociously Porphyro's adversary. Unhappy
Porphyro, who had already given seisin to hell, Porphyro with one
half of him already in the living devil's clutch, who never slept but
he dreamed of the tortures his poor shadow suffered at the hands of
those that lovingly work evil! Tortures, which were but
foreshadowings of his own! No wonder Porphyro dared not invoke even
the least of spirits. He knew too well that the mightiest of them
would appear with no greater calling than a word.
But there was one antidote which wrestled with the nightshade in his
cup, one star of the right colour appeared above his horizon. There
was a woman in his town (one only for him) a princess and the ward of
a king, an exquisite beauty. From the first time he saw her, he
loved her with a passion which reproached his meaner self. She fed
upon his sighs, without knowing that the air she breathed was full of
them. In any case, he would never have dared to speak to her. It
was sufficient daily bread to him to see her move. He hung upon her
footsteps. He kept pace with her in her rides, running ever in the
shadow because he himself had no shadow to call his own. Yet he
forgot while looking at her this one great fact of his life. Even in
his dreams she presently held his hand while he suffered. And he
dreamed of her thus till he set his teeth in his pillow. Gradually
her little mouth sucked up all the breath of his body. He wrote
poems about his princess and swallowed them. Often he took no other
food for days. He made philtres which would infallibly have caused
her to love him, had he not ruthlessly thrown them all away as soon
as made. He constructed an image of her in wax, and worshipped it
five times daily. It was this which wrought his downfall. Certain
of his clients (they had not paid him) denounced him as a sorcerer.
Without notice he received a domiciliary visit from the authorities.
Apart from other evidence which the house contained, the wax image of
the princess was discovered, and he was at once charged with
intending to make away with her life. Oh, the irony of fate, he who
would have cheerfully laid down his own for her! Being forcibly
removed from his house, the secret he had so long kept was
discovered, and this shadowlessness, though accounted for in a
hundred ways, all wide of the truth, was added at once to the long
list of crimes in his indictment. At the preliminary examination, he
would confess nothing. He was accordingly imprisoned pending the
preparation of tortures to shake his resolution. With the aid of
these refinements, he might be made to confess anything, even that he
had attempted the life of his best beloved. The scaffold loomed
before him. And oh, that her name should be bandied about in such
context.
Meanwhile Porphyro sat, body and soul in darkness. He saw none but
the jailer, who brought him food once daily, with a finger ever, on
his lips. Rats there were, and such small deer, but with these he
could hold no converse, although in his youth he had met with men who
professed to teach their languages, Porphyro was fain to chatter
constantly to himself that he might have no time to think. He played
his school games over again, rehearsed his school tasks to imaginary
masters, held imaginary conversations with clients and with his
parents long dead, and with his princess who was more than parent,
and more than dead to him. He wooed her in a thousand ways, now as
an emperor, raising her to his level, now as the meanest of her
grooms, to whom she sweetly condescended, now he was a soldier,
better used to red lips of wounds than red lips which wound, now he
was a scholar, who forgot all wisdom save hers, now he was a miser,
who came like Jupiter in a shower of gold. Thus riotous reigned
carnival before his coming Lent.
And now comes the strangest part of all this strange eventful
history. He fancied once or twice that he was replied to as he
spoke. Again and again he groped all over the blind prison, and felt
no one. Yet there was of a surety a tongue which answered him. And
the weirdness of it was that, turn though he might, it always spoke
from behind him. Again he searched the litter of the dungeon, and
again without result. The voice was at first unintelligible, like
the murmur of the sea, yet with a cadence which soon struck his ear
as strangely familiar. He had heard it only once before, but it had
been in that cock-pit underground where he had fought a main which
had coloured his whole life. He was bound up with the memory of it
like a poor prisoner whom men fetter to a corpse. It was the still
small voice which dominates the brawl of Hell.
His hair could grow no whiter, else it had done so. He listened with
all his ears and began to catch syllables and afterwards words, till
at last he made out that the Tempter was proposing terms of peace
with him.
Right well knew Porphyro (none better), the price that must be paid
for such a truce. His soul must feed the quick of Hell. It seemed
hard to yield up at last that immortal henchman which he had once so
gloriously saved from these same talons. Yet what chance had he? On
the one hand, if he maintained his feud with the Evil One, the halter
was weaving which must strangle love and life. On the other part, if
he surrendered his soul to the Exile, he could at any rate make what
terms he pleased. And there were terms he pictured himself exacting
which made ultimate payment of the highest price seem easy to the
blood which had once stood face to face with Satan, and given him
better than he gave. Porphyro still continued to argue _pro_ and
_con_, though his decision was a foregone conclusion. At last he
formulated his demands to the spirit. He must marry the Princess.
He must be her husband, were it but for a single night.
The walls of the dungeon suddenly became bright with a kind of
phosphorescent glow. Porphyro (still alone, or, at any rate, he
seemed so) saw a table standing in front of him, bearing a bond
already drawn and the materials for signing it. The terms set forth
were those he had himself proposed. He signed, sealed, and delivered
it, and was plunged into darkness again as his finger left the
parchment. A sense of infernal laughter pervaded the air, though
nothing was to be heard. Porphyro fell full length to the ground in
a fainting fit.
When he recovered his jailer was standing over him, come (as he
thought) to bring him food, but he was soon disabused of any such
notion by the man himself. He, who had refused on all prior
occasions to hold converse with his prisoner, now spoke voluntarily
to tell him the sands of his captivity had run out. At first the
dazed cage bird (who had forgotten for the moment his compact)
believed that he was on the point of expiating his crimes, real and
imaginary, upon the scaffold. But the jailer, not without
difficulty, made it clear to him that all captives received pardon on
the joyous occasion of the marriage of their Princess, which was
fixed for that day. Then Porphyro remembered all, and swooned again.
When he revived, our hero was sitting in the open air upon the steps
which led from the jail. He caught the smell of oxen roasting whole
in the market-place. The sky was red with the fires. The streets as
far as he could see them, were paved with flowers and, decorated with
triumphal arches. The citizens were bustling about in holiday
attire. Music seemed to be playing everywhere. Occasionally some
exuberant person fired off a gun. Porphyro rubbed his eyes and
wondered whether this could really be his wedding day. He had faith
in the boundless powers of the banner under which he had enrolled
himself. And yet was it possible? But his faith was amply
justified. An equerry suddenly rode up, parting the spectators to
right and left, leading a spare horse magnificently caparisoned, and
followed in the distance by a brilliant retinue. He doffed his cap
to Porphyro and sprang to the ground, and with a profound obeisance,
said in tones of deep respect:--
"I trust your Highness has recovered from your indisposition. I have
brought the horse as your Highness commanded."
Porphyro dimly understood that some potent influence was at work on
his behalf. With the assistance of his squire he took to the saddle.
The latter then, with another bow, remounted his own horse, scattered
a handful of gold to each side to break up the crowd, and with the
rest of the train (which had caught up with them) they galloped to
the Cathedral. Porphyro noted with stupid surprise that all the
fountains spouted wine, whereto certain of the citizens, judging by
the hiccups which mingled with their cheers, had already applied
themselves, not wisely but too well. But our hero was in a state of
so great fog himself as to feel his heart warm more towards these
than to the soberer ones, whose salutations he clumsily returned. By
the time the Cathedral was reached, he was rolling in his saddle. He
could not have dismounted without help. The incense made him dizzy.
He could not get the ringing of the bells out of his ears. The
candles danced before his eyes. Of all the service he heard one
word, and that was uttered by one who stood beside him, and whom
alone he saw (and that through a mist) of all that gay assembly. It
was the Princess. He pressed her hand as if he would never part with
it.
The service over, he had no idea how, or in what order they reached
the castle, and the banquet which followed was more or less of a
blank to him. The wines of which he partook liberally, could make
him no more drunk, nor all the compliments of all the fulsome
speeches (had he heard them) raise by one degree his pride. He
soared empyrean high in the thought that he had won the right to
crush into one cup, one moment, all the eternal delirium of all the
heavens.
That moment of fruition had come at last. Porphyro stood in that
holy of holies, his princess's chamber. A guard of soldiers was
ranged along the four walls of this dainty nest. Each leaned with
one arm upon a pike, while with the other hand he held aloft a
blazing torch. Great personages were also present, both courtiers
and noble dames, and at last the bride herself was brought in by her
women. While complimentary discourse passed from mouth to mouth,
Porphyro longed with his whole bartered soul to be alone with her.
He was burning with internal fire which he could hold in little
longer. At last he approached one that appeared to act as master of
the ceremonies.
"When is this rigmarole going to end?" he muttered between his teeth.
"Whenever your Highness pleases to draw your sword and lay it in the
middle of the bed, the princess will take up her place upon one side
of it, while you occupy the other," was the reply.
Porphyro started. He sorely recognised that voice. The official
kept his face averted, but it was undoubtedly the demon.
"What mean you by this gabble of naked swords between me and her?"
thundered Porphyro, unheeding who might hear. "Damned posture
master, is she not my wife?"
"Your wife, yes, but only by letters of procuration," and there was a
note of triumph in that voice.
"God of the Judgment! What is that you say?"
"I say you must be dreaming not to remember that you are only
temporarily united to the princess in your character of proxy for his
Imperial Majesty, the Holy Roman Emperor."
"Alas the while! Then I am dreaming, indeed!"
"These soldiers," continued the demon, "will remain here all night.
These ladies and gentlemen will also attend here till morning, to
entertain you and your bride of an hour through your somewhat tedious
spell of lying fully dressed together."
"Death and the Pit! Is this true?"
"True as death, assured as the pit. To-morrow you will sheathe your
sword, and depart from her for ever."
Porphyro pressed his hands to his temples. He thought his brain
would burst. He saw it all now. He was the dupe of the fiend who
had once been his dupe. His place in this pageant had been contrived
with infernal subtlety, only to wring the uttermost pang from his
heart strings. He who sups with the devil (they say) must needs have
a very long spoon. No help was possible. The Evil One was reaping
his revenge. And now he was assured his victim had at last grasped
the situation, he threw off the mask, and showed himself in his true
colours. He raised his eyes for the first time from the ground,
those brimming lakes of bottomless hate which Porphyro had fronted
once before in the underground hall. It was his turn now to quail.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the fallen angel. "By mine ancient seat in heaven
(and that is an oath I never lightly take as you may guess), confess,
have I not bested you, friend Porphyro? He laughs best who laughs
the last; is it not so?"
"But what about that bond registered between us in Hell's chancery?"
cried Porphyro, in a voice which would have melted triple brass.
"Your bond," shrieked Beelzebub. "Do you remind me of your bond; you
who once outfaced me that a bond should be read by the letter, and
not by the spirit? I have come round to your views, and I now fling
that word back in your teeth. You have had your bond to the letter,
and now go and kill yourself, for there is nothing more for you to
do."
Porphyro bent like a broken reed. He had found his over-mastering
fate. His hopes were ash. He breathed in gasps. He staggered to
the window, and threw open the casement. A great pitiful star looked
in, but to his eyes it appeared red and bloodshot. He turned round
again to the room. He wished to see once more before he died that
mistress of his soul for whose sake he had flung it away. But the
figure of his master had swelled, and was swelling so rapidly in size
that it seemed to fill every available corner of the room. Porphyro
raised his hands to heaven, and called upon his lady's name. Three
times he called it, and then sprang out of the window. The princess,
who had grasped nothing of what had passed, ran to the shutter, and
looked out just in time to hear the splash of his body as it fell
into the moat. It was the first sign of interest in him which she
had shown.