THE MAGIC EYE.
The six men arose, and each in turn, and then all together, uttered
the words--
'Welcome, Yellow-cap!'
Then he among them who had the biggest nose and the most sweeping
moustachios came forward, made Raymond a grave salute, and, taking him
by the arm, led him to a chair at the head of the table.
'The tale of the Seven Brethren is at last complete,' said he.
'Hear! hear!' gruffly responded the others.
'Brother Yellow-cap,' continued the first speaker, 'let me introduce
you to our Brotherhood. I am the Prime Maniac. He on your right is the
Chancellor of the Jingle. Next to him is the Home Doggerel. At the
foot of the table is the First Lord of the Seesaw. The Foreign
Doggerel is next on the left. Next again the Lord Privy Gander. One
and all of us are bound to aid you, abet you, and obey you, so long as
you own and wear the yellow cap. Once more, welcome, Yellow-cap!'
'Welcome!' chimed in the Brethren; and they raised their tankards to
their lips and emptied them at a draught.
'We do not call one another by our titles,' said the Lord Privy
Gander.
'Nor by our names,' added the Chancellor of the Jingle.
'Nor by our surnames,' pursued the Home Doggerel.
'But by our nicknames,' observed the Foreign Doggerel.
'By the mystic syllables repeated,' said the First Lord of the Seesaw.
Hereupon a curious ceremony took place. Beginning with the Lord Privy
Gander, and so on in regular order to the First Lord of the Seesaw,
each brother in rapid succession spoke his own nickname, with the
following result.
'Ruba!' said the Lord Privy Gander.
'Dubb!' said the Chancellor of the Jingle.
'Dubsix!' said the Home Doggerel.
'Menin!' said the Foreign Doggerel.
'Atub!' said the First Lord of the Seesaw.
'Gyp is my nickname,' remarked the Prime Maniac, 'because the verse
had not feet enough to go all round. Did you ever hear anything like
this before?'
'I fancied at one moment that I had; but now I don't know,' Yellow-cap
answered.
'There is only one inconvenience about it,' observed Ruba.
'We must always speak in order,' added Dubb.
'On pain of spoiling our metre,' put in Dubsix.
'And our rhyme,' continued Menin.
'Except Gyp,' added Atub, 'who can talk when he likes, and that is his
chief advantage.'
'It is an advantage in more ways than one,' Gyp remarked. 'Not only
can I talk when I like, but none of the others can say anything unless
all the rest are willing; because his speaking makes it necessary that
all the rest should have something to say, and that Ruba should begin.
The only laws that we recognise are metrical laws, and they, as you
know, are the strictest in the world.'
Yellow-cap felt rather bewildered; but he was glad to find that he
himself was not included in the metrical system. Some error in either
rhyme or rhythm would, he felt sure, have been the consequence.
'Let me order you a pipe and tankard,' continued Gyp, ringing the
bell. Somewhat to Yellow-cap's surprise Silvia appeared at the door in
answer to the summons. The pipe and the tankard were soon brought; and
the new-comer's health having then been drunk in ceremonious silence,
the formal part of his reception seemed to be at an end.
Meanwhile he had improved such opportunity as he had had for examining
the faces about him, and was not altogether astonished to find that
they were the originals of the many-headed portrait on the inn
signboard. Only the seventh (and central) head, the ugliest of all,
was missing; the Brethren, exclusive of himself, being only six in
number. Beer-drinking and tobacco-smoking seemed to be the business of
the meeting. Yellow-cap had never until this evening drunk anything
stronger than milk or smoked anything more dangerous than sweet-fern;
but the beer gave him courage for the tobacco, and he soon began to
feel at home.
'But can you tell me how I got here?' he inquired of Gyp, who sat
nearest him, and who, moreover, could answer without setting all the
feet running. 'The way was long and perilous and as black as pitch;
and yet, when the door was open just now, I could see right through
the house into the street, and it did not seem more than twelve
paces.'
'Did you come alone?' asked Gyp, puffing a long whiff of smoke up
towards the ceiling.
'Alone with Silvia.'
'Ah-h-h! Silvia sometimes leads the best of men astray. But you got
here at last, and that is more than many do. And you were but just in
time. The King prints his placards to-night.'
'What placards?' asked Yellow-cap innocently.
'Announcing his "successor"--a farce in one act.'
'And who is his successor?'
'Who would you like him to be?' inquired Gyp, smiling.
At this all the Brethren looked at one another and winked
mysteriously. Yellow-cap, who was fast becoming wise, and who knew
more about this matter than he cared to admit, could not help
wondering at his queer position--the Head of a Secret Society hostile
to the very monarch who had offered him his kingdom that same
afternoon. The thought of it made him feel quite hot; and he was so
far forgetting himself as to be on the point of taking off his cap to
cool his forehead, when Gyp caught his arm, and a murmur of horror ran
through the assembly.
'Forbear! as you value your credit!' cried Ruba.
'And your gentility!' exclaimed Dubb.
'And your influence!' called out Dubsix.
'And your success!' shouted Menin.
'And your reputation!' bawled Atub.
'It is against the first law of the Brotherhood,' added Ruba.
'We all have headaches,' asserted Dubb.
'We couldn't live without them,' declared Dubsix.
'Would you commit suicide?' demanded Menin.
'Be guilty of treason?' hiccoughed Atub, who had swallowed some smoke
the wrong way.
'Good gracious!' was all that poor Yellow-cap was able to reply.
'Allow me to explain,' interposed Gyp courteously. 'The Seven Brethren
are the outcome of an artificial civilisation. It is our strength and
also our weakness that we never seem to be what we are. Our laws are
binding because they are irrational. Our power is great because it is
an imposition. Our respectability is perfect because it is a fraud. We
gain our ends because our ends are ourselves. Our union is strong
because it depends on mutual distrust. In a word, we are the
Everlasting Unreality! Have you understood me?'
'Not in the least,' replied Yellow-cap.
''Tis well. No one of us understands either himself or his brother. He
who understands or is understood is anathema.'
'Dear me!' ejaculated Yellow-cap.
'You have heard of the cap of invisibility?'
'I believe so.'
'The yellow cap is more wondrous yet--it is only when you put it on
that you can be seen--at all events by the world.'
'Dear me!' ejaculated Yellow-cap again.
Hereupon all the Brethren twisted their moustachios, knocked the ashes
out of their pipes, refilled them, lighted them, and smoked in
silence.
'By the way,' said Yellow-cap at length, 'about the signboard outside
the inn-door. I recognise six of the portraits, but where is the
seventh? He was the one whose face was the most ugly and disagreeable
of all; but I don't see him here.'
'He is here,' said Ruba.
Yellow-cap was going to ask, 'Where?' but Gyp laid his hand upon his
arm and whispered in his ear that he must not interrupt until the
whole verse had run itself out.
'We have seen him,' continued Dubb.
'The likeness is good,' pronounced Dubsix.
'Flattering,' affirmed Menin.
'I can think of nothing to say,' confessed Atub.
'Come and look in our mirror,' said Gyp, taking Yellow-cap by the arm
and leading him to the end of the room.
Now, against the wall at this end hung a very odd specimen of a
looking-glass. Its surface was convex, and in shape it was neither
square, nor round, nor exactly oval, for it was pointed at both ends.
Its length was divided into three parts, of which the central one was
black, and those at the sides of a dull white like china. Altogether
it looked like a gigantic eye plucked from the forehead of some
Polyphemus; and hung up in the old inn-parlour, where, if it could no
longer see anything itself, it might at least give those who gazed
into it a distorted image of themselves.
When Yellow-cap, however, first fixed his eyes upon this curious
mirror he could see nothing but a profound depth of blackness; but in
the midst of this obscure movements were presently visible. By and by
the many wavering shapes grew clearer and drew near to one another
and, as it were, melted together, until at last a definite image stood
forth against the dark background.
A strange figure it was--of a short-legged, shapeless man, with no
less than seven heads upon his shoulders. Six of these Yellow-cap knew
at once; but the seventh--the central and most important one of
all--was unknown to him. And what an unpleasant set of features it
had, to be sure!
The whole company had gathered behind Yellow-cap, who was standing
directly in front of the mirror.
'You don't know him?' spoke the voice of Ruba.
'He knows you,' said Dubb.
'He is an old friend of yours,' remarked Dubsix.
'And a very dear one,' added Menin.
'And a very false one,' observed Atub.
'What does it all mean?' inquired Yellow-cap.
'If you will give yourself the trouble to lay your left finger beside
your nose it might inform you,' said Gyp courteously.
Yellow-cap did as he was desired. The reflection in the glass lifted
the corresponding finger and laid it beside the nose of no other than
the central head.
'Would you mind winking your left eye?' continued Gyp.
Yellow-cap did so. The central head alone winked back.
'Now you might stick out your tongue,' suggested Gyp.
Yellow-cap tried this experiment also: the seventh head was the only
one that imitated the gesture.
'This is absurd,' exclaimed Yellow-cap indignantly. 'The central head
imitates everything I do; it even pretends to look like me, which is
ridiculous, for it is ugly, while I am----'
'Perhaps you have never looked in a mirror before?' said Gyp gently.
'Yes, I have--in tin pans,' returned Yellow-cap warmly.
'Tin pans are untrustworthy,' said Gyp. 'This is the best mirror in
the world, and that is the reason why it is in the shape of an eye,
without any face belonging to it.'
'I should think you would be the last people in the world to want a
good mirror, or any mirror at all!' exclaimed Yellow-cap testily.
'We don't want it--and that is why we have it. We call it our eyesore;
and it is the eye of our destiny. Look again.'
'What is this?' muttered Yellow-cap. 'All the heads are melting into
one another; now they are all swallowed up in the central head; and
now that head looks more like me than ever, and yet uglier; and
now--why, it looks like the old dwarf I carried across the river,
and--which am I?'
He turned round, and, behold! the six Brethren were seated each one in
his place at the table, smoking and drinking as gravely as ever, and
looking as if they had never once stirred from their chairs. Glancing
back at the mirror, he saw that it had returned to its former
unreflecting condition, only a few vanishing shadows being yet visible
in its black depths.
'It certainly is different from a tin pan,' thought he as he went back
to his chair at the head of the table.
'Nothing more than an optical illusion,' said Gyp, filling
Yellow-cap's pipe from his own tobacco-pouch, and handing it to him
courteously. 'There is no harm in it--none at all.'
'Especially as it makes you our Head,' observed Ruba.
'I move we suspend the rules,' said Dubb.
'I second that motion,' said Dubsix.
'We mustn't put our feet into our business,' remarked Menin in an
explanatory way.
'The only rule we never suspend is the rule that no rule shall not
sometimes be suspended,' added Atub.
'So be it,' said Gyp agreeably. 'The metrical system is hereby
suspended for the rest of the evening. Have another tankard of ale,
Brother Yellow-cap?'
'I don't care if I do--with a Head on it,' returned Yellow-cap,
putting an emphasis on the 'Head.' And when the ale was brought he
arose, with a frown on his brow, and spoke to them in a bold voice as
follows:--
'Yes, I am your Head, for no one of you is so unreal as I. When I was
a little boy I sat blowing soap-bubbles, and saw the Appanage of
Royalty appear amidst the clouds of the wash-tub. He promised me this
cap, and now the cap is mine. I have paid for it all I had in the
world, and now I mean to get my profit out of it. You have waited for
me: I have never waited for you; for I could succeed without you; but,
without me, you would be nothing!'
'Hear! hear!' exclaimed the Brethren in chorus, seeming much pleased
with Yellow-cap's eloquence.
'Now, Brother Gyp, you may state the object of this meeting,' said
Yellow-cap, resuming his seat.
Gyp bowed and pulled a roll of parchment out of Brother Dubsix's
pocket, which was written all over with musical notes in the bass and
treble clefs.
'The object is a twofold one,' he began.
'I object to that expression,' interrupted Dubb.
'Why?' demanded Gyp in a mortified tone.
'Only for the sake of speaking out of metre,' replied Dubb; at which
the Brethren looked at one another and lifted their eyebrows.
'Well, at all events,' said Gyp, recovering his good-humour, 'we want
to get the King out and put the usurper in his place.'
'Has anything been done to prepare the people for this change?'
inquired Yellow-cap. 'Are they on our side?'
'We've got fifty paid _claqueurs_--I know that,' said Atub.
'And we have suspended the rule about full-dress in the stalls,' added
Dubsix.
'Ah!' exclaimed Menin, nodding his head and crossing his feet on the
table in republican style, 'there is a great deal in that.'
'How are you going to depose him?' Yellow-cap asked.
'In the usual way,' said Gyp: 'by finding a rhyme to him, and then
putting him under foot.'
'But suppose he won't be deposed?'
'Ah, it will be our turn then,' said Ruba gloomily. 'He will appoint a
successor, and we shall be repeated backwards.'
At this all the Brethren curled their moustachios and sighed deeply.
'Who is to find the rhyme to "King Ormund?"' inquired Yellow-cap, to
whom this affair began to look rather irregular.
'Who but the usurper?' cried all the Brethren together.
'And who is he?' said Yellow-cap.
Hereupon the Brethren one and all took their pipes out of their mouths
and deliberately pointed at Yellow-cap with their pipe-stems. At the
same time they puffed out a vast cloud of tobacco-smoke, which rose
to the ceiling of the room and collected there.
'Do you mean me?' cried Yellow-cap, recoiling. 'I never made a rhyme
in my life.'
'You have said it!' they answered with one voice; 'so let it be!'
At this moment they all arose and solemnly emptied their tankards;
then they piled the tankards together in the centre of the table; and
Dubsix and Atub, taking each an arm of Yellow-cap, raised him from the
floor and seated him upon the pile as upon a throne.
The six Brethren now joined hands and began to dance round and round
the table, puffing volumes of smoke from their pipes as they went.
Faster and wilder moved the dance, thicker and yellower whirled the
smoke-wreaths, and the six faces sped dizzily round the table, until
it seemed to Yellow-cap as if he were encircled by a great ring of
face, with one broad nose, one endless grinning mouth, and a single
leering eye in the forehead.
By and by the room began to spin round also--such, at least, was
Yellow-cap's impression. Round and round it spun like a teetotum,
moving as fast as the dancers did, but in the opposite direction. The
smoke, driven together by these contrary motions, was whirled into a
sort of hollow dome over Yellow-cap's head. The yellow light from the
lamp shone upon that smoky dome, and its shape became defined more and
more distinctly, until at last it hung poised in air--a gigantic image
of the very yellow cap which Yellow-cap wore.
Gradually it settled down lower and lower, as if to shut him in. He
tried to rise from his tankard throne, but a heavy weight from above
seemed to prevent him. And now, glaring upon him through the maze of
flying phantoms, he saw the mirror of the Brethren, no longer black
and lifeless, but fierce and flaming as the eye of a giant demon. And
through the centre of that fiery pupil he saw the Brethren, one after
another, take a flying leap; not vanishing suddenly, but dwindling
away, smaller and smaller, until they could be seen no more. Each as
he leaped threw back at Yellow-cap a malicious leer and beckoned to
him mockingly to follow. Gyp was the last; and as he sprang Yellow-cap
wrenched himself from his throne--which fell behind him with a
crash--and strove to follow.
But the yellow cap of stifling smoke came down upon him and shut him
in. He sank downwards, choking and gasping; and he heard, ringing
through the heated air, a sound of laughter that reminded him of
Silvia.