Wrath had burned the bonds of John Cabot’s hard-learned constraint.
A fury of resentment over the subjection of Dolores controlled him.
Supernatural might to avenge and save her seemed to come to him. Yet
sudden as was his leap, strong its impetus, that which was material of
his adversary had side-stepped neatly as though he were some mortal
boxer in a squared circle.
“Positively, you annoy me,” commented Satan from the far end of the
dais.
“You demon dog, your spite is nothing to my righteous rage!”
Again John rushed the blasphemer with head lowered between his
shoulders; seized and attempted to bear him down. But face forward he
collapsed upon the steps. His will to kill was conquered by its own
futility. Nothing--quite nothing was in his grasp. A chuckle caused
his glance to lift. Nearby stood the Tormentor as though untouched. An
opaque aura surrounded him. Thick fumes spread with his breath.
Cabot staggered to his feet. All too soon the realization which Dolores
had implored was being taught him. What matter how righteous the
cause--how violent his will for avengement? This was Too-Late Land.
Satan clapped his hands; commanded the guard.
“Seize the fool. Throw him into the Den of the Demented. Get him into
shape for particular torment. Out with him!”
“_Wait._”
At Dolores’ word the guardsmen halted their rush. John fixed his eyes
upon the regal figure rising from the throne.
With her rose-adorned staff, upraised like the scepter of the queen
she had been declared, the girl-shade commanded silence. From her
eyes, as from beacon candles behind dark panes, shone the light of
determination. The time had come for her to test that early-morn
resolve of matching her guile against that of His Satanic Majesty. The
look she leveled upon him was too subtle for even his super-sense to
define.
“Has Your Lowness duly considered?” she asked him. “You say you never
waste power. This shade has proved at least initiative.”
“A powerful impudence, I call it, to break into our unhappy little home
in this--ah--vehement manner and invite my intended, right before my
eyes, to elope with him. He deserves the worst billet of the Hadean
hordes.”
“Granted, sire. But if you draft him, isn’t he likely to distinguish
himself among your conquering heroes? Is there not a warning in his
show of fight?”
“Why a warning? What could he do?”
“They tell me that the hold you have on your military is in the
princely rewards offered to your veterans. And has the Great-I-Am
Himself a better name for keeping His promises than you?”
Crossing to him, Dolores met his combative look with an expression of
affectionate concern.
“Don’t you see that you would put yourself under obligation to advance
one whom, quite naturally, you wish to depose? Why not return him
into the false security of Elysium? After you have come into your
own, he will be one of your captives of state. You will then have the
privilege of wreaking your dislike on him as you see fit. Look on him
as end-of-the-season fruit. Let him ripen.”
“And be denied the taste of him now?” Satan licked his lips. “Is this
a trick, she-fiend, to wrest him from my clutch? Have a care lest you,
too, become disliked!”
“I am not afraid of that.” With a laugh that came strangely from her
lips--luring, assured, golden--she plucked the rose-bud off her ankle
and, from tip-toe, flicked it against his cheek. While placing it in
his buttonhole, she added: “You brand your warriors. Wear my brand, the
scarlet bud. You are mine, as I may be yours if only----” She drew away
her laughing lips just as, almost, he had accepted their challenge.
“Courtesan!” he accused. “What has inspired you, all at once, with the
best way to intrigue me--to make me doubt your truth and fear your
artifice?”
“Perhaps I have not wished to intrigue you, as you say, before. Perhaps
my artifice has been in concealing myself. Ah, Pluto, that even you
have not guessed my trickery! I wished to wait until sure of my own
mind. Yours is so dominant, it is hard to be sure. Since what you have
said this morning, I am ready to stand revealed. You have aroused what
you see in my eyes. You should be the last to doubt. This is myself. The
other was all pose--my best asset on Earth.”
“You are worse than I thought,” he exulted. “I was beginning almost to
believe in your decency, so consistently did you act. Then, after all,
I am right?”
Again she laughed, this time with him. “Aren’t you always right, you
perpetual wrong? Of course there is no right or wrong to what I’m
asking you. Call it my caprice. I’ve done a great deal to please you.
Do one thing for me.”
“Make it something else, then.”
“Something else is never what one wishes.”
“But I suspect your request of being something more than a caprice.”
“That even I cannot deceive you!” With the chagrined exclamation, she
thrust her arm in his and drew him aside. Her head drooped, as if from
embarrassment. In a low, hesitant voice, she confessed: “You are too
keen for me. This request _does_ matter to me. The truth is, I don’t
want my ex-only, as you call him, down here. Don’t you know enough
of woman’s nature to appreciate how I feel? I can’t help the way I
was born. I _am_ a harlot at heart. Sooner or later the bad habit of
loving the old love might distract me from the new. You saw last night
that any conquest has its charms for me. Why not---”
She paused, as if to contemplate a fresh idea. Then: “I shall need
concentration to satisfy Your Lowness’ hopes of me and concentration
will come easier with not the humblest of my ex-suitors to distract.
General Cummings was a deserter on Earth and, as you yourself said,
once a deserter always. Him, as well as John Cabot, you may treat with
fuller effect after The Day. Why not send the old nuisance along? And
there is one other of whom I should like to be rid.”
“Who, pray, may this other be?”
“My babe.”
Satan showed himself assailable by surprise. “Not the Littlest Devil?
Now you have spoiled your argument. I can’t believe----”
“You will when I explain. Ineffectual looking as is my child, she
interferes with my whole-heartedness for evil. She rouses soft feelings
in me--impulses to protect the weak and helpless. I’ll find it hard to
live down even the thought of her. To see her daily is a detriment.
Focus that imagination of yours, Pluto. Try to realize what you often
must have heard, that mother-love is the most enduring influence in the
universe.”
“That’s one thing I’ve never been--a mother. Wish I had. I’d have given
birth to some rare wastrels.” He grinned at the thought.
“Don’t you see my argument? You will grant the favor I ask? I dislike
to plead as much as you, but I make this a plea. Give me a chance in
the one sincerity of my life.”
“Your one sincerity?”
He bent low to catch her murmured reproach.
“That _you_ should need to ask! I, too, feel that I have my one chance
in you. If you are not strong enough to compel me----”
“One question.” His fingers snapped like a bracelet around her wrist.
“Why have you been at such pains to arouse my jealousy of this weakling
whom now you seem to despise?”
Deliciously she smiled. “Ah, you humorists who cannot see the joke on
yourselves! Once you said that I was humorous only in that I had no
humor. Since, you have taught me. Tell me, is not jealousy the rough
stone that whets an edge of love on attraction?”
“I’d sort of hate to part with the Littlest Devil,” His Highness
tentated. “It has seemed almost like having a child of one’s own in
the palace. If she were a boy, I don’t believe I could. Strange, that
hankering in the heart of the worst of men and devils to reproduce
himself in a son!”
He glanced up at his coat-of-arms, then back at her. The peculiar
intensity of his look was unendurable. Her lids drooped over the
consternation which she feared would show in her eyes. But she pressed
her advantage.
“I’d like the babe to go along, for her sake as well as my own. Her
crime was her parents’. You wouldn’t fancy that third-to-fourth
generation rule if you’d ever had a child. Come, dear Devil,
acknowledge that my reasons are good. Let me have my way this once.
Afterward you may have----”
“Exactly what?”
She lifted her face, pale as a night flower, to the strong light of his
gaze.
“There is a question between us,” her lips murmured reminder. “You can
compel me, but you want my consent. You spoke just now of a sporting
proposition. Very well, I’ll make you a bet. This favor I ask you
against----”
She could not control the shiver that seized her. The spit of
fork-tongued lightnings excused the droop of her face. For a moment the
growl of thunder silenced her voice.
“I can keep promises, too. This favor against--anything--you want--of
me.”
She had pledged--herself. Her two hands slipped within his and clung,
palm to palm. They and her voice shook with loathing which she prayed
he might mistake for the tremors of love.
“Dear, _dear_ Devil,” she begged him.
His answer was in terms of action. He returned to the dais and seated
himself in the throne-chair. He bade the guard unhand their prisoner
and sent the dwarfs to summon those whose release had been stipulated
by the famed siren as her price. From a jewel-box he selected a fillet
of pearls supporting a single, magnificent drop of light, red as a tear
of blood. This he placed upon Dolores’ night-black hair. It was, he
made formal announcement, her betrothal crown.
Only John Cabot failed to salaam before the queen-elect. Straight to
her he strode; bent that only she might hear his suppressed appeal.
“Do you expect me to believe in your inconstancy?” he asked. “What
force has crushed your courage, that you hesitate to trust your fate to
me? Because I seemed to fail you on Earth, do you fear that I shall do
so in this inter-world? Is there no voice in your heart to tell you how
gladly I should have forfeited my passport to the Fields to spare you
this profanation? They say that Shadow Land is only the waiting place.
Wait with me, Dolores. Don’t cast yourself too low for later recall.”
The persistence of his faith both shamed and blessed the spirit-girl.
Evidently he was struggling against the influence of mal-appearances.
How could she have doubted such absolving love? For herself, surely her
Hell was the there and the now. She must remember that his safety and
that of the hapless atom born of their passion hung in the balance. Yet
even him and their babe she must have sacrificed, if necessary, for the
greater issue. The fate of the Universe, which the Maker seemed to have
forgot, depended upon the pseudo-treachery of her looks and speech.
So far her determination had proved strong as desperate. What that
victory were defeat? What that she slew this sturdy love of him she
so longingly loved? The issue she must not--_dared_ not forget. To
protect the great heart of John Cabot from those thoughts of despair
which, like ceaseless drops of water on a stone, in time must wear away
his hope; to spare him who had defied the first law of Mystery Land
the realization of his own futility in the Lane of Labors; to keep
his forehead clean of that brand more significant than the brand of
Cain--the hate-sign of the Hadean hordes; in saving him to send him as
her messenger to warn the Earth-blest of the Castling’s contemplated
drive; through him to reach the ear of One said to be omnipotent and
arouse Him from His lax protectorate----
Perhaps, if That Day was saved to righteousness, He would be told of
her and how she had tried to do her part. As yesterday and to-day were
so small a fraction of Eternity, with all life’s reparations possible
in the vast vacuum of to-morrow, justice yet might be meted to Dolores.
His Majesty, she knew, had attended each word of John’s plea. A single
fault in the play of her part and her partial success would end in
failure. Not long enough for one of his dart-like thoughts must she
consider the soul-hurt to herself. She, whom so often he had twitted
for her simplicity, had pitted her intelligence against the Master
Mind. Far better not to have attempted the deceit if she did not
deceive.
John she silenced with a mocking laugh. His amazement she answered with
assumed contempt. His protest she cut short with ridicule.
“So you cannot progress for thought of me? Strange, when here in
Gehenna I have out-progressed my _penchant_ for you! Yet until to-day I
did not realize how sleazy your form would look to me or how weak would
sound your mawkings. One’s taste is best cultured by contrast.”
Her glance toward the King was eloquent interpretation.
“Don’t reproach me with my shamelessness, I beg of you,” she
anticipated him. “It is a point of pride with me. Away, you weary me!
Let this convince you that my fancy for you died with my body.”
She struck him with her jasper-like wand across the lips. At his low
moan, the illusion of a red rose adorning its handle went out.
Dolores, realizing that the light of his love also must have been
snuffed, scarcely could repress an echo of his protest against her
cruelty. Lest she fail in the climax of her triumph, she turned from
the sight of him; sank into the prime minister’s chair.
Her courage was reinforced when the dwarfs dragged Corporal Sam before
the dais. The old soldier-soul’s shaken state from only a few hours of
“special treatment” accented the necessity of his immediate release.
In the parting with her babe she felt free to indulge in more of
naturalness. She had confessed a weakness there in the strength of
her desire to overcome it. A moment she held the small shade in her
arms. But the cling of little arms about her neck choked her with the
necessity of untwining them. So trustful, so young, so blameless, to
be consigned to punishment! The crush of desolation which pressed hard
on her heart might best be lifted by thought of a possible day when
she might see her child again--see her with her trust, her youth, her
blamelessness eternalized.
The precious salvage she consigned to John with not a word of her
heartful adjuration that he be good to her, take care of her, teach her
that her mother had loved her, even as she had him, her best beloved,
far too well to have and hold.
No more did she risk the aside which she wished with soldier Sam,
in which to advise that he trust all his dread knowledge to John
Cabot. She felt sure, however, that he would do so of his own accord.
Once in the Fields, his object would be her own in sending him.
Gallant himself, he soon would recognize gallantry and would give his
confidence to John.
The King was issuing orders. An adequate guard was to serve as escort
to the Elysian boundary, taking a wide detour to escape the shade
patrol. The fact that such a transfer never before had been made need
not concern them. The love-hound had blazed a trail from Elysium down.
Let him blaze another from Gehenna up. They were to start at once.
Only John Cabot made his exit loathfully. After the others had preceded
him through the light-riven curtain, he paused; turned. Dolores knew
that to the last he hoped of her. A gesture, a whisper, a sigh would
have recalled him to full faith. He had meant what he said. Gladly
would he have exchanged or shared her fate until that dim-distant day
when justice was to take the universe.
But she did not make the gesture, vent the whisper, breathe the sigh.
Rather, she forced the false laugh which that hour had stood her in
such good stead and turned, affecting to think him gone, to her Satanic
suitor. Seductively she leaned, as if to consummate the caress which
John’s arrival had interrupted so short and yet so long a while before.
At the downward swish of the hangings, however, she drew back. The lilt
of her laugh was lost in the realization that he who had come to find
her had left her, lost. More moan than mirth it sounded at the thought
that no lightning flash or whip of wind in the storm-ridden air outside
could scourge him as had her treachery.
At her change of attitude, Satan sat back and watched her with
unsmiling scrutiny.
“It is not too late to call them back if you regret the terms of our
wager. ‘Anything’--wasn’t that your pledge?”
“But I do not wish them back. I am glad--so glad to be rid of them.”
“And I. You acknowledge that I have won the bet?”
“Yes, Your Lowness. You have--won.”
Any show of triumph he subdued. Even that peculiarly calculating
expression in his eyes, which before had dismayed her, was covered by a
sort of veil.
“The first thing I want of you,” said he quietly enough, “is your
agreement that to-night shall be our nuptial night. I regret to dun a
lady, yet I _don’t_ like I. O. U.’s. Shall you find it convenient to
pay?”