As the twelfth stroke of the bell in the tower at the corner tolled
forth slowly, the midnight wind blew chill down the deserted avenue,
and swept it clear of all belated wayfarers. The bare trees in the thin
strip of park clashed their lifeless branches; the river far below
slipped along silently. There was no moon, and the stars were shrouded.
It was a black night. Yet far in the distance there was a gleam of
cheerful light which lured me on and on. I could not have said why it
was that I had ventured forth at that hour on such a night. It seemed
to me as though the yellow glimmer I beheld afar off was the goal of my
excursion. Something within whispered to me then that I need go no
farther when once I had come to the spot whence the soft glare
proceeded.
The pall of darkness was so dense that I could not see the sparse
houses I chanced to pass, nor did I know where I was any more. I urged
forward blindly, walking towards the light, which was all that broke
the blackness before me; its faint illumination seemed to me somehow to
be kindly, inviting, irresistible. At last I came to a halt in front of
a building I had never before seen, although I thought myself well
acquainted with that part of the city. It was a circular edifice, or so
it seemed to me then; and I judged that it had but a single story, or
two, at the most. The door stood open to the street; and it was from
this that the light was cast. So dim was this illumination now I had
come to it that I marvelled I could have seen it at all afar off as I
was when first I caught sight of it.
While I stood at the portal of the unsuspected edifice, peering
doubtfully within, wondering to what end I had been led thither, and
hesitating as to my next step, I felt again the impulse to go forward.
At that moment tiny darts of fire, as it were, glowed at the end of the
hall that opened before me, and they ran together rapidly and joined in
liquid lines and then faded as suddenly as they had come--but not too
soon for me to read the simple legend they had written in the air--an
invitation to me, so I interpreted it, to go forward again, to enter
the building, and to see for myself why I had been enticed there.
Without hesitation I obeyed. I walked through the doorway, and I became
conscious that the door had closed behind me as I pressed forward. The
passage was narrow and but faintly lighted; it bent to the right with a
circular sweep as though it skirted the inner circumference of the
building; still curving, it sank by a gentle gradient; and then it rose
again and turned almost at right angles. Pushing ahead resolutely,
although in not a little doubt as to the meaning of my adventure, I
thrust aside a heavy curtain, soft to the hand. Then I found myself
just inside a large circular hall. Letting the hangings fall behind me,
I took three or four irresolute paces which brought me almost to the
centre of the room. I saw that the walls were continuously draped with
the heavy folds of the same soft velvet, so that I could not even guess
where it was I had entered. The rotunda was bare of all furniture;
there was no table in it, no chair, no sofa; nor was anything hanging
from the ceiling or against the curtained walls. All that the room
contained was a set of four curiously shaped narrow stands, placed over
against one another at the corners of what might be a square drawn
within the circle of the hall. These narrow stands were close to the
curtains; they were perhaps a foot wide, each of them, or it might be a
little more: they were twice or three times as long as they were wide;
and they reached a height of possibly three or four feet.
Going towards one of these stands to examine it more curiously, I
discovered that there were two projections from the top, resembling
eye-pieces, as though inviting the beholder to gaze into the inside of
the stand. Then I thought I heard a faint metallic click above my head.
Raising my eyes swiftly, I read a few words written, as it were,
against the dark velvet of the heavy curtains in dots of flame that
flowed one into the other and melted away in a moment. When this
mysterious legend had faded absolutely, I could not recall the words I
had read in the fitful and flitting letters of fire, and yet I retained
the meaning of the message; and I understood that if I chose to peer
through the eye-pieces I should see a succession of strange dances.
To gaze upon dancing was not what I had gone forth to do, but I saw no
reason why I should not do so, as I was thus strangely bidden. I
lowered my head until my eyes were close to the two openings at the top
of the stand. I looked into blackness at first, and yet I thought that
I could detect a mystic commotion of the invisible particles at which I
was staring. I made no doubt that, if I waited, in due season the
promise would be fulfilled. After a period of expectancy which I could
not measure, infinitesimal sparks darted hither and thither, and there
was a slight crackling sound. I concentrated my attention on what I was
about to see; and in a moment more I was rewarded.
The darkness took shape and robed itself in color; and there arose out
of it a spacious banquet-hall, where many guests sat at supper. I could
not make out whether they were Romans or Orientals; the structure
itself had a Latin solidity, but the decorations were Eastern in their
glowing gorgeousness. The hall was illumined by hanging lamps, by the
light of which I tried to decide whether the ruler who sat in the seat
of honor was a Roman or an Oriental. The beautiful woman beside him
struck me as Eastern beyond all question. While I gazed intently he
turned to her and proffered a request. She smiled acquiescence, and
there was a flash of anticipated triumph in her eye as she beckoned to
a menial and sent him forth with a message. A movement as of expectancy
ran around the tables where the guests sat at meat. The attendants
opened wide the portals and a young girl came forward. She was perhaps
fourteen or fifteen years of age, but in the East women ripen young,
and her beauty was indisputable. She had large, deep eyes and a full
mouth; and there was a chain of silver and golden coins twisted into
her coppery hair. She was so like to the woman who sat beside the ruler
that I did not doubt them to be mother and daughter. At a word from the
elder the younger began to dance; and her dance was Oriental, slow at
first, but holding every eye with its sensual fascination. The girl was
a mistress of the art; and not a man in the room withdrew his gaze from
her till she made an end and stood motionless before the ruler. He said
a few words I could not hear, and then the daughter turned to the
mother for guidance; and again I caught the flash of triumph in the
elder woman's eye and on her face the suggestion of a hatred about to
be glutted. And then the light faded and the darkness settled down on
the scene and I saw no more.
I did not raise my head from the stand, for I felt sure that this was
not all I was to behold; and in a few moments there was again a faint
scintillation. In time the light was strong enough for me to perceive
the irregular flames of a huge bonfire burning in an old square of some
mediaeval city. It was evening, and yet a throng of men and women and
children made an oval about the fire and about a slim girl who had
spread Persian carpet on the rough stones of the broad street. She was
a brunette, with dense black hair; she wore a striped skirt, and a
jacket braided with gold had slipped from her bare shoulders. She held
a tambourine in her hand and she was twisting and turning in cadence to
her own song. Then she went to one side where stood a white goat with
gilded horns and put down her tambourine and took up two swords; and
with these in her hands she resumed her dance. A man in the throng, a
man of scant thirty-five, but already bald, a man of stalwart frame,
fixed hot eyes upon her; and from time to time a smile and a sigh met
on his lips, but the smile was more dolorous than the sigh. And as the
gypsy girl ceased her joyous gyrations, the bonfire died out, and
darkness fell on the scene again, and I could no longer see anything.
Again I waited, and after an interval no longer than the other there
came a faint glow that grew until I saw clearly as in the morning sun
the glade of a forest through which a brook rippled. A sad-faced woman
sat on a stone by the side of the streamlet; her gray garments set off
the strange ornament in the fashion of a single letter of the alphabet
that was embroidered in gold and in scarlet over her heart. Visible at
some distance was a little girl, like a bright-apparelled vision, in a
sunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. The ray
quivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct, now like a real
child, now like a child's spirit, as the splendor came and went. With
violets and anemones and columbines the little girl had decorated her
hair. The mother looked at the child and the child danced and sparkled
and prattled airily along the course of the streamlet, which kept up a
babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy. Then the mother raised
her head as though her ears had detected the approach of some one
through the wood. But before I could see who this newcomer might be,
once more the darkness settled down upon the scene.
This time I knew the interval between the succeeding visions and I
waited without impatience; and in due season I found myself gazing at a
picture as different as might be from any I had yet beheld.
In the broad parlor of a house that seemed to be spacious, a
middle-aged lady, of an appearance at once austere and kindly, was
looking at a smiling gentleman who was coming towards her pulling along
a little negro girl about eight or nine years of age. She was one of
the blackest of her race; and her round, shining eyes, glittering as
glass beads, moved with quick and restless glances over everything in
the room. Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which
stuck out in every direction. She was dressed in a single filthy,
ragged garment, made of bagging; and altogether there was something odd
and goblin-like about her appearance. The severe old maid examined this
strange creature in dismay and then directed a glance of inquiry at the
gentleman in white. He smiled again and gave a signal to the little
negro girl. Whereupon the black eyes glittered with a kind of wicked
drollery, and apparently she began to sing, keeping time with her hands
and feet, spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking her knees
together, in a wild, fantastic sort of time; and finally, turning a
somersault or two, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with
her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meekness and
solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning glances which she
shot askance from the corners of her eyes. The elderly lady stood
silent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement, while the smiling gentleman
in white was amused at her astonishment.
Once more the vision faded. And when, after the same interval, the
darkness began to disappear again, even while everything was dim and
indistinct I knew that the scene was shifted from the South to the
North. I saw a room comfortably furnished, with a fire smouldering in a
porcelain stove. In a corner stood a stripped Christmas-tree, with its
candles burned out. Against the wall between the two doors was a piano,
on which a man was playing--a man who twisted his head now and again to
look over his shoulder, sometimes at another and younger man standing
by the stove, sometimes at a young woman who was dancing alone in the
centre of the room. This young woman had draped herself in a long
parti-colored shawl and she held a tambourine in her hand. There was in
her eyes a look of fear, as of one conscious of an impending
misfortune. As I gazed she danced more and more wildly. The man
standing by the porcelain stove was apparently making suggestions, to
which she paid no heed. At last her hair broke loose and fell over her
shoulders; and even this she did not notice, going on with her dancing
as though it were a matter of life and death. Then one of the doors
opened and another woman stood on the threshold. The man at the piano
ceased playing and left the instrument. The dancer paused unwillingly,
and looked pleadingly up into the face of the younger man as he came
forward and put his arm around her.
And then once more the light died away and I found myself peering into
a void blackness. This time, though I waited long, there were no
crackling sparks announcing another inexplicable vision. I peered
intently into the stand, but I saw nothing. At last I raised my head
and looked about me. Then on the hangings over another of the four
stands, over the one opposite to that into which I had been looking,
there appeared another message, the letters melting one into another in
lines of liquid light; and this told me that in the other stand I
could, if I chose, gaze upon combats as memorable as the delectable
dances I had been beholding.
I made no hesitation, but crossed the room and took my place before the
other stand and began at once to look through the projecting
eye-pieces. No sooner had I taken this position than the dots of fire
darted across the depth into which I was gazing; and then there came a
full clear light as of a cloudless sky, and I saw the walls of an
ancient city. At the gates of the city there stood a young man, and
toward him there ran a warrior, brandishing a spear, while the bronze
of his helmet and his armor gleamed in the sunlight. And trembling
seized the young man and he fled in fear; and the warrior darted after
him, trusting in his swift feet. Valiant was the flier, but far
mightier he who fleetingly pursued him. At last the young man took
heart and made a stand against the warrior. They faced each other in
light. The warrior hurled his spear and it went over the young man's
head. And the young man then hurled his spear in turn and it struck
fair upon the centre of the warrior's shield. Then the young man drew
his sharp sword that by his flank hung great and strong. But by some
magic the warrior had recovered his spear; and as the young man came
forward he hurled it again, and it drove through the neck of the young
man at the joint of his armor, and he fell in the dust. After that the
sun was darkened; and in a moment more I was looking into an empty
blackness.
When again the light returned it was once more with the full blaze of
mid-day that the scene was illumined, and the glare of the sun was
reflected from the burning sands of the desert. Two or three palms
arose near a well, and there two horsemen faced each other warily. One
was a Christian knight in a coat of linked mail, over which he wore a
surcoat of embroidered cloth, much frayed and bearing more than once
the arms of the wearer--a couchant leopard. The other was a Saracen,
who was circling swiftly about the knight of the leopard. The crusader
suddenly seized the mace which hung at his saddle-bow, and with a
strong hand and unerring aim sent it crashing against the head of his
foe, who raised his buckler of rhinoceros-hide in time to save his
life, though the force of the blow bore him from the saddle. The knight
spurred his steed forward, but the Saracen leaped into his seat again
without touching the stirrup. While the Christian recovered his mace,
the infidel withdrew to a little distance and strung the short bow he
carried at his back. Then he circled about his foe, whose armor stood
him in good stead, until the seventh shaft apparently found a less
perfect part, and the Christian dropped heavily from his horse. But the
dismounted Oriental found himself suddenly in the grasp of the
European, who had recourse to this artifice to bring his enemy within
his reach. The Saracen was saved again by his agility; and loosing his
sword-belt, which the knight had grasped, he mounted his watching
horse. He had lost his sword and his arrows and his turban, and these
disadvantages seemed to incline him for a truce. He approached the
Christian with his right hand extended, but no longer in a menacing
attitude. What the result of this proffer of a parley might be I could
not observe, for the figures became indistinct, as though a cloud had
settled down on them; and in a few seconds more all was blank before
me.
When the next scene grew slowly into view I thought for a moment it
might be a continuation of the preceding, for the country I beheld was
also soaking in the hot sunlight of the South, and there was also a
mounted knight in armor. A second glance undeceived me. This knight was
old and thin and worn, and his armor was broken and pieced, and his
helmet was but a barber's basin, and his steed was a pitiful skeleton.
His countenance was sorrowful indeed, but there was that in his manner
which would stop any man from denying his nobility. His eye was fired
with a high purpose and a lofty resolve. In the distance before him
were a group of windmills waving their arms in the air, and the knight
urged forward his wretched horse as though to charge them. Upon an ass
behind him was a fellow of the baser sort, a genial, simple follower,
seemingly serving him as his squire. As the knight pricked forward his
sorry steed and couched his lance, the attendant apparently appealed to
him, and tried to explain, and even ventured on expostulation. But the
knight gave no heed to the protests of the squire, who shook his head
and dutifully followed his master. What the issue of this unequal
combat was to be I could not see, for the inexorable veil of darkness
fell swiftly.
Even after the stray sparks had again flitted through the blackness
into which I was gazing daylight did not return, and it was with
difficulty I was able at last to make out a vague street in a mediaeval
city doubtfully outlined by the hidden moon. From a window high above
the stones there came a faint glimmer. Under this window stood a
soldier worn with the wars, who carried himself as though glad now to
be at home again. He seemed to hear approaching feet, and he withdrew
into the shadow as two others advanced. One of these was a handsome
youth with an eager face, in which spirituality and sensuality
contended. The other was older, of an uncertain age, and his expression
was mocking and evil; he carried some sort of musical instrument, and
to this he seemed to sing while the younger man looked up at the
window. The soldier came forward angrily and dashed the instrument to
the ground with his sword. Then the newcomers drew also, and the elder
guarded while the younger thrust. There were a few swift passes, and
then the younger of the two lunged fiercely, and the soldier fell back
on the stones wounded to the death. Without a glance behind them, the
two who had withstood his onslaught withdrew, as the window above
opened and a fair-haired girl leaned forth.
Then nothing was visible, until after an interval the light once more
returned and I saw a sadder scene than any yet. In a hollow of the bare
mountains a little knot of men in dark-blue uniforms were centred about
their commander, whose long locks floated from beneath his broad hat.
Around this small band of no more than a score of soldiers, thousands
of red Indians were raging, with exultant hate in their eyes. The
bodies of dead comrades lay in narrowing circles about the thinning
group of blue-coats. The red men were picking off their few surviving
foes, one by one; and the white men could do nothing, for their
cartridges were all gone. They stood at bay, valiant and defiant,
despite their many wounds; but the line of their implacable foemen was
drawn tighter and tighter about them, and one after another they fell
forward dying or dead, until at last only the long-haired commander was
left, sore wounded but unconquered in spirit.
When this picture of strong men facing death fearlessly was at last
dissolved into darkness like the others that had gone before, I had an
inward monition that it was the last that would be shown me; and so it
was, for although I kept my place at the stand for two or three minutes
more, no warning sparks dispersed the opaque depth.
When I raised my head from the eye-pieces, I became conscious that I
was not alone. Almost in the centre of the circular hall stood a
middle-aged man of distinguished appearance, whose eyes were fixed upon
me. I wondered who he was, and whence he had come, and how he had
entered, and what it might be that he wished with me. I caught a
glimpse of a smile that lurked vaguely on his lips. Neither this smile
nor the expression of his eyes was forbidding, though both were uncanny
and inexplicable. He seemed to be conscious of a remoteness which would
render futile any effort of his towards friendliness.
How long we stood thus staring the one at the other I do not know. My
heart beat heavily and my tongue refused to move when at last I tried
to break the silence.
Then he spoke, and his voice was low and strong and sweet.
"You are welcome," he began, and I noted that the accent was slightly
foreign, Italian perhaps, or it might be French. "I am glad always to
show the visions I have under my control to those who will appreciate
them."
I tried to stammer forth a few words of thanks and of praise for what I
had seen.
"Did you recognize the strange scenes shown to you by these two
instruments?" he asked, after bowing gently in acknowledgment of my
awkward compliments.
Then I plucked up courage and made bold to express to him the surprise
I had felt, not only at the marvellous vividness with which the actions
had been repeated before my eyes, like life itself in form and in color
and in motion, but also at the startling fact that some of the things I
had been shown were true and some were false. Some of them had happened
actually to real men and women of flesh and blood, while others were
but bits of vain imagining of those who tell tales as an art and as a
means of livelihood.
I expressed myself as best I could, clumsily, no doubt; but he listened
patiently and with the smile of toleration on his lips.
"Yes," he answered, "I understand your surprise that the facts and the
fictions are mingled together in these visions of mine as though there
was little to choose between them. You are not the first to wonder or
to express that wonder; and the rest of them were young like you. When
you are as old as I am--when you have lived as long as I--when you have
seen as much of life as I--then you will know, as I know, that fact is
often inferior to fiction, and that it is often also one and the same
thing; for what might hare been is often quite as true as what actually
was?"