SLAVES OF FELSENWEIR
1
“We meet at last, Woodville!”
Anubis spoke. And I knew _the Voice_!
“Please come and talk to me. We have much to say to one another.”
Those beautiful, dreadful eyes never moved in their regard. I came out
of the shadow into blue light and at last stood less than a pace from
the chair.
“Your work is familiar to me, Woodville.” Thin lips under a hawklike
nose scarcely seemed to move. “We shall understand one another
presently.”
He raised one of the talonish hands and snapped his fingers.
I abandoned speculation again and became a detached watcher. I was in
a world where ordinary laws had ceased to operate.… In some way I had
strayed over the border line.
The ebony statue stood up.
With a sense of amazement such as I cannot hope to convey, I realized
that the figure _lived_! She disappeared into shadow but almost
immediately returned carrying a low, tapestried stool.
In barefooted silence she approached, placed the seat for me, and
returned to her place on the dais, resuming that pose in which I had
first seen her.…
“Mizmûn surprises you?” Anubis suggested. “She is a Nubian Arab,
Woodville, and was born just outside Assouan. I procured her at the
age of four. Is she not a beauty? Her companion”--with one talon hand
he indicated the motionless ivory figure--“Isa, is a Georgian, as no
doubt you had guessed from the texture of her skin.”
He snapped his fingers and spoke rapidly in a tongue which sounded
unfamiliar. The ivory statue stood upright. Raising white arms, she
turned slowly, dreamily, like a mannequin. I was conscious of definite
embarrassment, and I suppose I showed it, for:
“Pray do not consider the feelings of my attendants,” said Anubis.
“They have none.”
He snapped his fingers again. Isa resumed her former pose.
“That unpleasant quality which women are fond of referring to as their
soul is absent in Isa, Mizmûn, and the others. Twelve in all,
Woodville, and as nearly perfect as Nature will permit Science to rear
a human being. The members of my Corps of Pages approximate as closely
to the _hourïs_ of Mohammed’s paradise as one could reasonably expect
to approach.”
He went on to tell me in his cold, cynical voice how he had procured
these results--a mixture of surgery and dietetics which sickened me as
I listened. My horror grew and grew--and my gorge rose against him.
“Every page, in addition, is mistress of some useful profession or
pleasurable art. But perhaps I bore you. You may not share my passion
for beauty--my hatred of all that is coarse in humanity, notably its
proclivity for multiplying. I am personally unbeautiful. If I showed
myself to the world, the world would mock at me. Therefore I hide and
accumulate power. I am to-day, Woodville, the most powerful man
living.” He extended gaunt crooked fingers. “I hold that mocking world
in the hollow of my hand!”
He paused, watching me, and I sought for composure--composure to
retain the regard of those beautiful, wild-animal eyes.
“Your work in Brazil interested me deeply. Particularly, your account
of certain native tribes on the upper reaches of the Rio Negro
suggested possibilities. Later, I shall ask you to mark on a map the
exact territory occupied by them. I wish to convince you of the
futility of your opposition. I shall then give you ample time to
decide--for yourself and for your friends.
“You may all join our company if you wish. Indeed, I have urgent need
of you. In your very dissimilar mental developments you are, all
three, unique--but useful. I rather think you find our little Marusa
attractive?”
I clenched my fists and bent forward.
“No melodrama, Woodville, I beg! Directly you have made your decision,
I will give her to you with pleasure.… But I see you regard this as
bribery. I wish your conclusions to be based upon an appreciation of
my aims, purely. For this reason, and for no other, you have been
permitted to see the laboratory and to interview me in person. Few of
my company have enjoyed these privileges.”
He snapped his fingers.
“But let us forget worry and women, and consider wine!”
The girl Isa, in whom I had observed not the slightest indication of
life since she had returned to her kneeling pose, stood up and
disappeared in shadow. Mizmûn followed. A few moments later they
returned silently as they had stolen away.
One set a high table at the edge of the dais between myself and
Anubis, the other laid a tray upon it. Right and left of the table
they stood, the ebony and the ivory statue.
I saw before me a large bowl of fruit, glasses, some very
delicate-looking sandwiches, a bottle of Bollinger, a flask of white
wine, some pre-war whisky, a syphon, and a plain black box.
Raising my eyes, they were caught and held by the fixed gaze of
Anubis. He spoke softly.
“Your suspicions are… an insult, Woodville! Even the clumsy Borgias
disdained drugged wine!”
“But…!”
“Those were your thoughts! Your suspicion I forgive. That you so
gravely misunderstand my powers is disappointing. Would you be good
enough to open the black box for me?”
I tore my gaze away from those golden eyes and looked at the box.
Standing up, I raised the lid.
For self-possession I had been fighting all the time; but now, in
spite of this hard-won control, a cry, a _shriek_, was torn from me.…
A blinding light shone out of the box, searing my eyes! I was blind!
This devil had… The cry was cut short upon my lips.
“Obey!” said Anubis.
And suddenly I could see again!…
But I was powerless, paralyzed! I tried to raise my eyes from the box
to the speaker. It was impossible. I could not move a muscle of my
body. I was tongue-tied--a dead man, save for my powers of sight and
hearing. Bending over the box I stood rigid, until:
“Look at me,” the Voice commanded.
I looked.
“When Gaston Max and yourself left your room at the Regal to wire to
Paris, London, and New York, such a box was brought under the notice
of John Lonergan. Since that moment he has been my slave. You
understand?”
“I understand.”
I was helpless. This devilish mechanism had robbed me of personality!
“It is my intention, however,” Anubis continued, “that you shall be
your own master. Therefore, close the box.”
I obeyed.
“You are free.”
It was so!
A sense of pressure like that of a steel helmet became removed from my
brain. Anubis’s talon fingers were delicately skinning a peach.
“I might bind you to me for ever. But I always fulfil my promises.
Your part is to _choose_. John Lonergan enjoys that oblivion which I
undertook to impose upon him. He is a mere echo. I can so check
corruption of the flesh, Woodville, that a human body would survive
for many generations--a condition under which the brain dies slowly. I
believe I spoke of a thousand years? Allow me to illustrate what I
meant. But first, whilst I can commend the wines, I feel that your
choice will fall upon whisky?”
“Thanks! A whisky and soda would be acceptable.”
And I was proud that I could speak, and speak unfalteringly!
A few phrases in that strange, guttural tongue Anubis uttered, and
Mizmûn poured out a glass of white wine whilst Isa prepared whisky
and soda.
I tried in vain to catch the girl’s eyes. She looked beyond me,
_through_ me.
Anubis spoke again.
I shuddered, drank, and hastily set my glass upon the floor. The two
girls disappeared into shadows.
“This was the condition to which I referred, Woodville. I have
fulfilled all my promises.”…
A curtain was drawn aside.
In the dim bluish light I saw a crystal coffin, not upright, but
tilted slightly backward. In it, naked as he was born, _lay Gaston
Max_. His hands were clasped upon his breast, his sightless eyes
stared straightly before him.…