AT THE FORTUNE-TELLER’S
The moonlit gables of the city threw a zig-zag pattern on the
cobble-paved streets, and brought alternately into view and obscurity
the few passers-by, among whom were two women, who, hurrying along,
seemed, by keeping as near as possible to the base of the triangular
shadows, to shun observation. Recognition, indeed, would not have
been easy, for the ample hoods of their grey cloaks were drawn well
over their faces; only their figures and lightness of step told that
they were young. As to their looks there was, for the reason already
given, no room for more than speculation. Close as they kept together
but few words passed between them, and those scarcely above a whisper.
Of the people whom they met a good many turned to look after them in
curiosity, but owing no doubt to their air of purposeful hurry, no man
seemed to think it worth while to follow them. Up to a certain point,
that is.
Arrived at the fork where one street ran into two the women paused as
if uncertain which to take. It was necessary to look up and read the
names, and as they did so a man crossing the street caught a momentary
glimpse of one of the up-turned faces silhouetted against an oil lamp,
which, from its place some yards away, was brought into level with the
girl’s head. He stopped, almost with a start, then crossing quickly to
the shadow of an entry, waited till the girls resumed their way, upon
which he came out and followed them.
They went, however, but a couple of hundred yards farther. Before a
house in a small secluded _Platz_ they stopped and stood hesitating.
On the door was a plate where by the light of a bluish lamp which hung
in the portico could be read the one word, “Parabosco.” The courage of
the two girls, if checked, soon returned; they went boldly to the door,
which at their approach opened silently and admitted them. The man
who had followed them now paced up and down the _Platz_ in thoughtful
indecision.
He was a good-looking young fellow, alert and soldier-like; yet in
the strong moonlight the face seemed much more than that of a mere
city lounger; its beauty was intellectual, its distinction manifestly
came from a sense of power, power in action united with gentleness of
manner. That was the man’s attraction, his easily imagined fascination,
that sense of quiet, unobtrusive strength; the charm lay not in his
mere features but in the spirit behind them.
Presently, as though his resolve was taken, he went up to the blue-lit
door. An unseen hand opened it as before and, without a word, he
passed in. Meanwhile the two girls had entered a room hung with dark
velvet on which were worked strange cabalistic devices. The air was
subtily perfumed and a light shining through a globe of blue crystal
just illuminated the room enough to enhance its character of mystery.
Perhaps the most striking feature of this was the dead silence, a
stillness that seemed to strike the visitors dumb with its almost
appalling intensity.
“I wish we had not come.” Fear forced out the whisper from one of the
girls.
“We cannot help it now,” returned her companion, whose voice, scarcely
above her breath, seemed only just to repress a tremor.
“I had no idea it was a place like this,” the other said, looking round
with almost a shudder. “If they--he--the man should find out----”
“He will, easily, if you chatter.”
“Well,” persisted the irrepressible one, “this is not what I bargained
for. I thought it would be a piece of fun, but I don’t--oh!”
Her talk was cut short by a woman in oriental dress who had suddenly
appeared and, holding the curtains aside, was motioning the visitors to
pass through. With a momentary hesitation they followed her gesture,
and as they crossed a small ante-room a door in front of them swung
open and they found themselves in the presence of the fortune-teller
to whom their curiosity had attracted them. The sanctum of this
modern soothsayer was furnished with the usual stock-in-trade of his
profession, objects calculated to inspire awe--or something worse--in
the vulgar, and to throw a glamour of the supernatural over what,
stripped of the mystic surroundings, might have been a common-place
personality. The flamboyant chart of the heavens, the divining
crystal, a skull, the glowing brazier, all were there, and at a table
by a great parchment volume sat the fortune-teller. A sharp-eyed
man with clean-shaven, cunning face in which a certain suggestion
of intellectuality was spoilt by the expression resulting from the
habitual practice of roguery.
The light was so arranged that it fell on the visitors, leaving the
fortune-teller in comparative obscurity, like a great spider in the
corner of his web.
“Ladies,” he said in his professional phrase, with a well practised
trick of voice, unnatural and therefore calculated to add to the air of
the supernatural, “you have come, I presume, to consult the stars and
the oracles of the unseen world whose humble interpreter I am. It is
well; the time is propitious, the hour is golden.”
Doubtless the emphasis he laid upon the last word was intended as a
hint, for with that he pushed toward his clients a silver shell in
which lay several coins. Each of the girls added a piece of gold, at
which the eyes gleaming out of the semi-darkness seemed to give a
flash of satisfaction. With that the soothsayer made a show of the
tricks of his trade. He described figures with his wand; cast chemicals
into the brazier, causing ghastly flames to leap and spirt; he took,
perfunctorily indeed, an observation of the heavens and affected an
invocative rapture. All this, however, did not last long, possibly
because the performer may have received an intimation that another
visitor was waiting to consult him. But the farce was gone through with
a gravity which did credit to the restraint behind that very mundane
face.
“Now will one of you ladies advance and place the lines of your hand
under observation?” he said in a tone of commanding request.
Still keeping her hood well over her face, one of the girls went
forward to the table and extended her hand, a long aristocratic hand
of exquisite shape, a hand that even to a man less shrewd than the
fortune-teller must have revealed the station of its owner. Whether
indeed he had suspected or not the character of his visitors, the
man glanced up from the hand with a sharp look of inquiry at the
half-concealed face. The scrutiny was but momentary, next instant he
was bending with a magnifying glass over the outstretched palm. The
time-honoured jargon of the fortune-teller was repeated; then the
cards told the same tale with alluring variations, the stars gave a
confirmatory horoscope.
“Jupiter in conjunction with Venus points to a great, we might almost
venture to say a royal marriage,” the seer pronounced with professional
glibness.
“No, no, not that!” the girl exclaimed with a vehemence which startled
the professor. “At least, I mean it is not certain, is it? It can be
prevented, it can be fought against?”
The smile on the man’s face did not hide the look of intense curiosity
with which he regarded her.
“Fight against the stars?” he protested with a deprecating laugh. “You
are a bold young lady to imagine that.”
“Against the stars? No,” she returned impetuously. “But against the
powers here below that would coerce fate.”
“The fate I have predicted,” rejoined the fortune-teller dryly, “is
scarcely one which a woman would fight against.”
“That may be,” the girl retorted, “but perhaps, Herr Professor, if your
skill in divination were as great as is pretended you would hardly be
surprised at my distaste for the fate you have predicted.”
The sharp eyes with their keen iridescence were fastened on her now in
triumphant premeditation.
“My skill scarcely deserves your sneer, madame,” he replied with a
repressing of his thoughts. “It may be greater than you imagine or than
I claim. Dare you challenge me to put it to the proof? Will you--it is
no light test--will you look into the magic mirror?”
“Why should I?” the girl asked half contemptuously.
“Merely that your scepticism may see how far it is warranted. The
mirror may confirm my verbal forecast,” he gave a shrug, “or not. Only
I warn you that what you shall see there may not be agreeable.”
The other girl who had so far sat intently silent rose and caught her
companion’s arm. “No,” she urged in a frightened whisper, “do not look,
I beg you. It may be terrible.”
“Worse than the royal marriage?” the other exclaimed with a scornful
laugh. “I cannot stop half-way now. I have heard my fate, I must see
its confirmation.”
“As you will,” said the fortune-teller quietly. “Only do not blame me
should the result be displeasing.”
“Show me, Herr Professor.”
He rose. “For that,” he said, “you must be here alone. Your friend may
wait in the ante-chamber.”
“You hear, Minna?”
“No, no; it is not right. I will not leave you. Surely you have heard
enough.”
“No; I mean to see what this mirror has to show. What,” laughing, “did
we come for but to know the future?”
The dark eyes out of the shadow were watching the two girls furtively,
but their owner spoke no word of persuasion. Doubtless his knowledge
of human nature told him that curiosity would prevail unaided. And so
it was. The companion was forced reluctantly to leave them, and when
the two were alone the fortune-teller quietly slipped round and, under
pretence of seeing that the door was securely shut, slipped home its
bolt.
“Remove your hood,” he said facing the girl.
“It is unnecessary,” she replied. “I came to see, not to be seen.”
“Precisely,” the professor returned with a sarcastic grin. “And you
thought to trifle with our sublime art. You judge so meanly of it as to
fancy that we whose knowledge passes human comprehension are ignorant
of the very identity of those who consult us. You pay us a poor
compliment, Princess.”
For a few moments there was silence as she stood, half-fascinated,
watching his glittering eyes. The light was on his face now bringing
out its Jewish cast, the lines of greed and cunning. If the face
disquieted her, she did not show it, she was too proud, too completely
mistress of herself for that. Simply, with a slight inclination of the
head she accepted his protest, giving no sign of discomfiture at the
word which proclaimed her identity, merely saying, as though she were
speaking to a servant--
“Will you let me see what the mirror has to show?”
He was thinking, designing actively as he watched her. “Surely,
Princess,” he said, with an affectation of humility, “the resources
of my art are at your gracious disposal. Will you be seated till the
moment of revelation arrives?”
He turned and busied himself with certain preparations. Presently
with a gesture of warning he drew aside a dark curtain and disclosed
a deep-set mirror, the surface showing nothing but a dead black
reflection. Immediately it was disclosed, a vapour spread over and
blurred the glass.
The Princess had risen and taken a step towards the mirror. Parabosco
turned sharply as the vapour rose; there was evil intent in his face.
“Princess,” he said significantly, “you are not as ordinary inquirers
are. The destinies of royal personages float in a higher plane, are
woven in a grander frame than those of ordinary mortals. The rewards of
divination must be proportionate.”
The man’s meaning was as obvious as his looks were evil. After a
moment’s hesitation she took out her purse and laid another gold piece
upon the table. The man’s eyes remained fixed in their greed.
“That is no price,” he said bluntly, “for the revelation of a royal
destiny.”
“The rewards of divination, as you call them,” the Princess replied
with quiet scorn, “seem to be governed not so much by proportion as by
extortion. Here, I will give you no more.”
As she spoke she laid a second gold coin beside the other. Parabosco
took them up and turned to the mirror, still obscured by the rising
vapour. Without looking back, he beckoned her to his side and enjoining
silence by a gesture, pointed to the recess. Gradually the vapour
became less dense till at length it was so attenuated that the black
reflection could once more be seen. The professor recited a rigmarole
in the style of an incantation--once more the vapour swept across the
glass and as it rolled away a picture became faintly visible. Standing
erect, Parabosco signed to his companion to look closely into the
mirror. As she bent forward to see through the tantalising mist, the
dim picture grew clearer till she could make out its subject.
The interior of a church, a priest at the altar, before him a bride and
bridegroom, the man in a splendid uniform. But the whole indistinct,
and remaining only a few seconds before it was obscured by a fresh
cloud of vapour.
“You saw?” Parabosco asked.
“Very little. The faces were hidden.”
“Was that less than you--bargained for, Princess?” he returned
sarcastically. “The lady was yourself.”
“How do I know that?”
“The mirror shows the fate of none but the gazer.”
“Is that all?”
“By no means. It was hardly worth while to be shown that, except that
it has confirmed what I have already predicted. Look,” he exclaimed,
pointing with a swift gesture to the mirror, “the vapour is agitated!
There is fate behind it; the great crisis, the real story, doubtless,
of your life. Dare you read it?”
“Indeed I dare,” she answered half-mockingly, as though she had begun
to see through the charlatan’s trick. “Do not delay; I have no time to
waste.”
Her words were unfortunate, suggesting to him that for the time she was
in his power. “You must give me a larger fee, Princess,” he demanded
sharply. “Look! Quickly, before the charm dissolves.”
“I will give you nothing more,” she replied firmly.
“Then I will close the mirror, and the chance will be gone forever.
See! Even now it may be too late,” he cried in a pretended excitement.
“It is to see your fate for good or ill. Give me your purse. Quick!
Your jewels, it is worth all that and more!”
She had drawn back and stood facing him steadily. “I will give you
nothing more, I tell you,” she said resolutely. “Your conjuring tricks
have been already overpaid.”
“Tricks?” he screamed. “You dare to blaspheme our sublime art and
mysteries. You know not the risk you run, how near the brink of deadly
horror you stand. You shall see your destiny. The fates are not to be
invoked lightly. You came here to know the future, you shall know it
and shall pay for the knowledge.”
The design of intimidation and extortion was manifest now in all its
vulgar brutality, but the quack had in his victim, although a woman,
yet a woman of character and spirit.
“Not one kreutzer more,” she maintained. “I have had enough of this
nonsense and your rudeness. Show me the way out of this place.”
“Not till you have satisfied my just demands,” he returned with an ugly
look of menace. “The revelation has been invoked for you and you shall
pay for it whether you look or not.”
She took a step towards the door. He sprang forward and intercepted her.
“Not so, Princess. You go not till you give what I demand.”
Mortified as she was at having put herself in the man’s power and at
risking the discovery of her identity which was sure to excite his
greed, she yet never lost her presence of mind.
“You will let me go at once, fellow,” she said haughtily, “or it will
be the worse for you.”
But he judged shrewdly that it might be the worse for him in any event.
“You will pay me to the utmost of your power or it will be the worse
for you,” he retorted. “I am sorry to have to speak to you bluntly,
Princess, but necessity cannot dance attendance on fine speeches or
miss golden opportunities, eh?”
For a moment she deliberated on the simplest way out of a false
position, false enough and to most women terrifying, although her high
spirit ignored its danger. Distasteful as it was to make terms with the
ruffian, it yet seemed the most sensible way out. A scandal would to
her proud spirit be hateful, and then there was Chancellor Rollmar to
think of.
“I am content to pay for my folly in coming to this den of jugglery,”
she said composedly. “I will give you two gold ducats beyond what you
have already extorted.”
“I must have more than that,” he demanded threateningly. “What? Five
ducats all told? It is absurd. Princesses do not come to me every day.”
As he spoke he made a grab at her purse and thrust it into the folds of
his gown. “Now, your jewels, my Princess; they are trifles to you but
much to me. Come! Don’t force my need to extremity. Pay your ransom,
and then you shall go.”
Her hood was thrown back now, disclosing the proud beauty of her face
in its defiant indignation. The lips were set in unutterable contempt
and loathing. It was the first great indignity she had ever suffered,
but if the situation brought its inevitable fear, that was repressed
behind the steady, scornful eyes. Parabosco could not meet the look,
could not raise his greedy eyes beyond the diamond at her breast.
“You shall pay for this, you ruffian,” she said between her teeth.
“I care not,” he flung back, “so that you pay first. Hand over your
jewels, or must I take them?”
In her determination she glanced round as though for a weapon of
defence, but none was available. Interpreting her look, the man sprang
forward and clutched her wrist, at the same time endeavoring to force
the rings from her fingers. It was the fellow’s brutal touch that now
for the first time beat down her courage and extorted a cry for help.
“Minna!” she called desperately. “Minna! Come! Quickly!”
“It is useless to call,” the fellow protested as he struggled to open
her clenched hand. “Your friend cannot hear you. You had best be quiet.
So!”
Failing to force back her fingers he had seized her brooch and torn it
from her bodice.
“Minna! Help!” she cried, putting her strength against her assailant’s
in a fierce effort to regain the jewel.
The handle of the door was tried and rattled.
“Your friend cannot come to you,” the professor laughed. “Better be
reasonable, and----”
With a great thud and snap the door was sent flying open and a man
appeared in the opening; the young man who had followed the Princess
to the house, and who now took in the scene with a frown under which
Professor Parabosco manifestly quailed.
“What does this mean, ruffian?” he demanded. But the fortune-teller was
silent. The young man turned to the Princess with a bow.
“May I ask you, madame?”
Save for the flush on her face, she seemed to have regained her
habitual composure. “This man, this charlatan whom I foolishly came to
consult, has robbed me,” she answered.
“Robbed you?” As he turned to the quacksalver his face, which had
softened, resumed its stern expression. Behind him were now two anxious
spectators of the scene, the princess’s companion, Minna, and the
woman, his wife, perhaps, who acted as usher to the fortune-teller.
“Not robbed,” the fellow cried in defiant reply to the look. “The lady
has availed herself of the most transcendent mysteries of our art, and
refuses adequate recompense.”
He had dropped into the jargon of his calling, and his tone fell from
bluster to complaint.
“You take a somewhat unmannerly way of enforcing your demands,” the
other observed sarcastically. “I will take a leaf out of your book.
Restore at once to this lady what you have taken from her.”
The professor gave a grin of cunning defiance.
“If I tell you who this lady is,” he returned, with a malignant look at
the princess, who had meanwhile drawn over her face the hood and cloak
which the struggle had thrown off, “you may think, my good sir, that I
am not unreasonably paid.”
The veiled threat was significant, but before any possible effect could
be apparent the young officer quietly took the wind out of the other’s
sails.
“I am as well aware of this lady’s identity as you can be, Master
Quacksalver,” he said. “Now, as her highness cannot wish to stay here
longer, you will at once restore what you have taken.”
Parabosco hesitated. The diamond ornament was worth many a week’s
income to him, and his game in that city was up. Quietly, but with
intensely significant action, the young man drew his sword. The jewel
was not to be kept; Parabosco sullenly tossed it on the table.
The other man took it up in surprise. “That?” he exclaimed. “You
filched that, you scoundrel, to pay for your hocus-pocus! Princess,
your brooch.” He placed it in her hand with a bow almost of homage.
“I thank you, sir,” she said simply, so coolly that under the
circumstances the words sounded almost ungracious.
“That is not all, perhaps?”
“He took my purse.”
He held out his hand. “The purse!”
“It was my fee.”
“The purse!”
It fell with a sharp ring on the table and was presented to its owner
as the brooch had been.
“I am indeed grateful, sir,” she said, this time with more animation,
as though sensible of seeming ungracious. “This man had been already
well paid for his trickery. I had given him five gold ducats.”
“Under compulsion, Princess, I fear?”
“Perhaps. But I am satisfied.”
“Then he must return at least four.”
“No, let him keep them; I must pay for my foolish escapade.”
“As you will, Princess. But----”
“Will you add to your service by escorting me out of this place?”
“I am honoured, Princess.” He stepped aside, and she moved towards the
door. “May I say a word to this fellow, Highness?” he begged.
“Is it necessary?”
“Only to warn him that if he sees daylight in this place to-morrow, it
will be through the bars of the town prison.”
The professor evidently thought it very probable; anyhow he did not
dispute the contingency, and in a few moments his three visitors were
outside in the street.
“Oh, Princess, what a horrible adventure,” cried the impressionable
Minna.
“What an amazing piece of folly,” her mistress corrected with a little
shudder of self-reproach. “One can scarcely blame the wretched man
for trying to take advantage of it.” She turned to the young man.
“Let me thank you again, sir, for having rescued us from an awkward
predicament. It was a foolish whim that led us into it, but we had
heard a wonderful account of the fortune-teller, and one gets tired of
being always sensible.”
The explanation seemed wrung from her. The constraint of her tone from
which a touch of haughtiness was not absent, showed that the speaker
was not used to apologize or account for her actions. But here the
intolerable humiliation of a false position made it imperative.
“A very natural curiosity, Princess,” he replied with a smile. “And the
accident of the fellow’s rudeness was hardly to have been foreseen.
It is very hard,” he continued with what seemed perhaps a strange
temerity, “that those in exalted positions should be debarred from
most of the fun and adventures of life.” Seeming to recollect himself,
he added with a deferential bow, “I am truly favoured at having been
permitted to free your Highness from an embarrassing situation.”
She had moved away, but now, as by an afterthought, turned back. “I may
ask who has rendered me this service?”
“I am honoured, Princess. My name is Lieutenant Ludovic von Bertheim.”
“You live in this city?”
“No; I am at present a wanderer. My home is in Beroldstein.”
“Ah, in Beroldstein.” The name seemed to awaken thoughts which were
hardly pleasant, but she dismissed them with a little inward careless
laugh. “Well, good-night, Herr Lieutenant, and many thanks. I hope
there is no need to ask you not to speak of this affair.”
Her manner was a curious mixture of coldness and a sense of duty which
told her that she owed her defender some graciousness.
“There is no need, Princess,” he answered gravely. “You may trust my
honour.”
For the first time there was manifest interest in the look which read
his face. “I am sure of it. Again, good-night,” she said.
But he took a step after her. “Your Highness will not refuse my escort
to the Palace. It is late and----”
She cut him short. “You are good, but an escort is unnecessary. It is
not far, we are two, and we know our way.”
With innate good sense he divined an obvious objection to his proposal.
“I may at least follow at a distance till I see that your Highness is
safe,” he urged.
“As you please,” she replied coldly. “Come, Minna,” and the two hurried
off.
Von Bertheim followed at a distance near enough for protection, too
distant for remark or scandal. Nothing more than a few curious glances
was encountered, and presently the Lieutenant saw them arrive in safety
at one of the private doors of the palace. At the distance, some fifty
paces, which he had punctiliously kept, he stopped and watched, hoping
perhaps for a parting sign from the Princess; but she went in quickly
without turning her head in his direction. Her companion, however,
looked back and the watcher thought she made a sign to him. As she
lingered he hurried forward.
“Good-night,” she said with a demureness which was obviously not quite
natural. “The Princess thanks you again. And, oh,” she added with a
burst of more characteristic eagerness, “you will not breathe a word of
this folly, will you, Herr Lieutenant! It would be terrible for us all.
The Princess trusts to your honour.”
Although it was more likely that the exhortation was rather prompted by
her own fears than a message from her mistress, von Bertheim replied
gravely, “I am sorry that the Princess should deem it necessary to
mention it not twice but once even.”
“Oh,” she protested hastily, “it is my fault. Her Highness has every
confidence in your chivalry. It was lucky,” she laughed with an
admiring glance. “Good-night.”
The door closed upon her and he turned away. “Lucky?” he repeated.
“Yes. How will the luck turn out? Ah, yes, it was a fortunate chance
even if the luck stop there.”