"The two you have looked into are gratuitous," he continued. "For what
you beheld in them there is no charge. But a sight of the visions in
the other two or in either one of them must be paid for. So far, you
are welcome as my guest; but if you wish to see any more you must pay
the price."
I asked what the charge was, as I thrust my hand into my pocket to be
certain that I had my purse with me.
He saw my gesture, and he smiled once more.
"The visions I can set before you in those two instruments you have not
yet looked into are visions of your own life," he said. "In that stand
there," and he indicated one behind my back, "you can see five of the
most important episodes of your past."
I withdrew my hand from my pocket. "I thank you," I said, "but I know
my own past, and I have no wish to see it again, however cheap the
spectacle."
"Then you will be more interested in the fourth of my instruments," he
said, as he waved his thin, delicate hand towards the stand which stood
in front of me. "In this you can see your future!"
I made an involuntary step forward; and then, at a second thought, I
shrank back again.
"The price of this is not high," he continued, "and it is not payable
in money."
"How, then, should I buy it?" I asked, doubtingly.
"In life!" he answered, gravely. "The vision of life must be paid for
in life itself. For every ten years of the future which I may unroll
before you here, you must assign me a year of life--twelve months--to
do with as I will."
Strange as it seems to me now, I did not doubt that he could do as he
declared. I hesitated, and then I fixed my resolve.
"Thank you," I said, and I saw that he was awaiting my decision
eagerly. "Thank you again for what I have already seen and for what you
proffer me. But my past I have lived once, and there is no need to turn
over again the leaves of that dead record. And the future I must face
as best I may, the more bravely, I think, that I do not know what it
holds in store for me."
"The price is low," he urged.
"It must be lower still," I answered; "it might be nothing at all, and
I should still decline. I cannot afford to be impatient now and to
borrow knowledge of the future. I shall know all in good time."
He seemed not a little disappointed as I said this.
Then he made a final appeal: "Would you not wish to know even the
matter of your end?"
"No," I answered. "That is no temptation to me, for whatever it may be
I must find fortitude to undergo it somehow, whether I am to pass away
in my sleep in my bed, or whether I shall have to withstand the chances
of battle and murder and sudden death."
"That is your last word?" he inquired.
"I thank you again for what I have seen," I responded, bowing again;
"but my decision is final."
"Then I will detain you no longer," he said, haughtily, and he walked
towards the circling curtains and swept two of them aside. They draped
themselves back, and I saw before me an opening like that through which
I had entered.
I followed him, and the curtains dropped behind me as I passed into the
insufficiently illuminated passage beyond. I thought that the
mysterious being with whom I had been conversing had preceded me, but
before I had gone twenty paces I found that I was alone. I pushed
ahead, and my path twisted and turned on itself and rose and fell
irregularly like that by means of which I had made my way into the
unknown edifice. At last I picked my steps down winding stairs, and at
the foot I saw the outline of a door. I pushed it back, and I found
myself in the open air.
I was in a broad street, and over my head an electric light suddenly
flared out and white-washed the pavement at my feet. At the corner a
train of the elevated railroad rushed by with a clattering roar and a
trailing plume of white steam. Then a cable-car clanged past with
incessant bangs upon its gong. Thus it was that I came back to the
world of actuality.
I turned to get my bearings, that I might find my way home again. I was
standing almost in front of a shop, the windows of which were filled
with framed engravings.
One of these caught my eye, and I confess that I was surprised. It was
a portrait of a man--it was a portrait of the man with whom I had been
talking.
I went close to the window, that I might see it better. The electric
light emphasized the lines of the high-bred face, with its sombre
searching eyes and the air of old-world breeding. There could be no
doubt whatever that the original of this portrait was the man from whom
I had just parted. By the costume I knew that the original had lived in
the last century; and the legend beneath the head, engraved in a
flowing script, asserted this to be a likeness of "_Monsieur le Comte
de Cagliostro_."
(1895.)