Everybody said it was a great opportunity for Hans. The pay was small,
to be sure, but the hours were short and the chance for advancement
prodigious. Already the boy could take a pair of rabbits out of a high
hat, or change a bunch of carrots into a bowl of goldfish.
Unfortunately, the Dutchmen of Rothdam were vegetarians, and Hans was
not yet learned enough in magic to turn goldfish back to carrots. Many
times he had asked his master, Kahnale, for instruction in the big
tricks. He longed to go in for advanced magic, such as typhoons,
volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. He even aspired to juggle planets
and keep three stars in the air at once.
Kahnale only smiled and spoke of the importance of rudiments. He pointed
out that as long as inexperience made mistakes possible it would be
better to mar a carrot or two than the solar system.
Not all the boy's projects were vast. It seemed as if there was as much
enthusiasm in his voice when he asked about love philters as when he
spoke of earthquakes. His casual inquiry as to the formula for making a
rival disappear into thin air betrayed an eagerness not present in his
planetary researches.
But to every question Kahnale replied, "Wait." The magician intimated
that a bachelor of black arts might play pranks with the winds, the
mountains and the stars forbidden to a freshman. True love, he declared,
would be the merest trifle for one who knew all the lore. Hans found
surprisingly small comfort in these promises. He had seen the sixteen
foot shelf of magic in the back room where the skeletons swung in white
arcs through the violet haze. Millions of words stood between him and
Gretchen, and she was already seventeen and he had turned twenty. It
irked him that he should be forced to learn Arabic, Chaldean and a
little Phoenician to win a Dutch girl. Sometimes he imagined she cared
for him in spite of a seeming disdain and he hoped that he might win her
without recourse to magic, but then she grew coy again. Anyway, Kahnale
had told him that only post-graduate students should seek to read the
heart of a woman.
And so Hans polished the high hats, fed the rabbits, read the prescribed
pieces in Volume One and learned a little day by day. He yearned more.
It seemed as if there must be a short cut to the knowledge which he
wanted, and this belief was strengthened one day when he discovered a
thin and ever so aged volume hidden behind the books of the sixteen foot
shelf. Before he had a chance to open the little book Kahnale rushed
into the room and cried out to him in a great and terrible voice to drop
the volume. Carefully, the magician returned the book to its hiding
place and he warned Hans never to touch it again upon the pain of the
most extensive and prodigious penalties. He not only intimated that
disobedience would be dangerous to Hans, but to his family, to the town
of Rothdam, to Holland and to the world.
Six months passed and Hans had striven to remember so many things since
the day of the warning that he had all but forgotten the words of
Kahnale. Lying atop the dyke, Hans gave the magician never a thought.
The boy drew pictures in the loose sand with the toe of his sabot and
brushed them away one after the other. At last he completed a design
which struck his fancy and he ceased work to admire it. He had drawn a
large heart and exactly in the center he had written "Gretchen."
It may have been a charm or a coincidence, but he looked up from the
sand design just in time to see her passing along the road which ran
parallel to the dyke. He shouted after her, but it was a capricious day
with Gretchen, and she went along about her business without once
looking back, under the pretense that she had not heard the greeting.
Hans raged and made as if to demolish the heart, and Gretchen, and
indeed the whole dyke, but then he thought of something better. He got
up and entering the house of Kahnale, went into the back room without
even stopping to rattle the skeletons. The room was empty and Hans
rummaged behind the long row of magic books until he found the old
volume which he felt sure would give him some of the needful secrets
which had been withheld from him. Opening the book, he blew away a thick
top soil of ancient dust and was chagrined to find that whatever
knowledge lay before him was concealed in some language so ancient that
he could not understand a single word.
"Perhaps," he thought to himself, "this is a charm I can set to ticking
even if I can't understand it." Fearing that Kahnale might come upon
him, he hid the book under his coat and carried it out to his retreat on
top of the dyke. In a low voice he began to read the strange and
fearsome sentences in the book. Although they meant nothing to him, they
possessed a fine rolling cadence which captured his fancy, and more
boldly and more loudly Hans went on with his reading.
While Hans meddled with the book of magic, Kahnale was in consultation
with the Mayor of Rothdam, who sought some charm or potion which would
insure him reelection. He had been a thoroughly inefficient Mayor, but
the magician dealt with clients as impartially as a lawyer or doctor,
and he agreed to weave the necessary spells. He stipulated only that the
Mayor should accompany him to the house on the dyke, where there was a
more propitious atmosphere for black art than in the town hall. After
some little fuss and fume about the price and the long walk and his
dignity, the Mayor consented, and the two men descended the great
stairway of the town hall. No sooner had they reached the street than
Kahnale looked at the sky in amazement. The day had been the most stolid
and fair of days when he entered the Mayor's office, but now the western
sky was filled with tier upon tier of angry black clouds, and as he
looked there was a fearsome flash of fire broad as a canal and a roll of
thunder which shook the ground beneath their feet.
"Quick!" cried Kahnale, and seizing the Mayor by the arm he rushed him
down the road which led to the sea. As they ran a rising wind with a
salt tang smote their faces. The clouds were growing blacker and
heavier. It almost seemed as if they might topple. There was another
flash bright as the light which blinded Saul. The Mayor crossed himself
and prayed. Kahnale cursed. They were within a hundred feet of the sea
when a second flare of fire outlined a figure on the dyke. It swayed to
and fro and moaned above the growing roar of the wind.
In a sudden hush between the gusts the figure turned and they could hear
the voice distinctly enough, though it seemed to be the voice of some
one a long way off. "Eb dewollah," said the voice, and Kahnale clapped
his hands to his head in horror.
"It is the end," cried the wizard. "There is no hope. This is the final
charm. The Lord's Prayer is last of all."
"I do not hear the Lord's Prayer. What is it?" pleaded the Mayor.
"You would not understand," explained Kahnale. "The prayer is said
backward, as in all charms. He has reached 'Eb Dewollah,' and that is
'Hallowed Be!' The prayer is the last of the charm."
"Charm? What charm?" said the Mayor querulously, clinging dose to
Kahnale.
"The master charm," said the magician. "This is the spell which when
said aloud summons all the forces of the devil and brings the
destruction of the world."
"The world!" interrupted the Mayor in amazement. "Then Rothdam will be
destroyed," and he began to weep.
Kahnale paid no heed. "It can't be stopped," he muttered. "It must go
on. He has the book and there is no power strong enough to stop the
spell."
"If I only had my policemen and my priest," moaned the Mayor.
"Is that all?" said Kahnale. "I have enough magic for that."
The magician spoke three words and made two passes in the air before he
turned and pointed to Rothdam. Instantly the bell in the town hall which
called all villagers to the dyke tolled wildly. The wind was rising and
shrilling louder and louder, and the sky was now of midnight blackness.
The Mayor looked up in wretched terror at the figure on the dyke and
started to rush at him as if to pitch him into the sea. Kahnale held him
back. "Wait," he said. "If you touched the devil servant you would die."
Above the shriek of the wind rose the voice from the dyke. "Nevaeh ni,"
said the voice. "In heaven," muttered Kahnale. "It is almost done."
Down the road in the teeth of the gale came the villagers of Rothdam. In
the van were the Mayor's police in red coats. They carried clubs and
blunderbusses, and one, more hurriedly summoned than his companions,
held a poker.
"There," cried the Mayor, "shoot that man on the dyke!" And with the
first flash of light the foremost guard ran halfway up the steep
embankment and leveled his blunderbuss. He fired. The roar of the gun
was answered by a crash of thunder. A fang of fire darted from the
center of the clouds and the guard rolled down the dyke and lay still at
the bottom.
"Tra ohw," came the voice from the dyke. The priest, not daunted by the
fate of the guard, hurried close to the side of the swaying figure and
sprinkled him with holy water, but no sooner had the water left his
hands than each drop changed to a tiny tongue of fire, leaping and
dancing on the shoulder of the devil servant. The priest drew back in
horror and the Mayor, with a cry of fear, threw himself at the foot of
the dyke and buried his face in the long grasses. High above the booming
of the gale and the crash of the waves against the barrier came the
voice from the dyke, "Rehtaf."
"Father," said Kahnale, "I come, master devil!" he cried with one hand
raised.
The sea which had almost reached the top of the dyke suddenly receded.
Back and back it went and bared a deep and slimy floor. On that floor
were many unswept things of horror. The earth trembled. The black clouds
were banks of floating flame. The villagers turned to run from the dyke,
for now the sea was returning. It rushed toward the dyke in a wave a
hundred feet high.
Out of the crowd one ran forward and not back. It was a girl with flaxen
hair and red ribbons. She ran straight to the figure on the dyke.
"It's Gretchen," she called. "Save me, Hans, save me." She threw her
arms around the boy's neck and kissed him. The wall of water hung on the
edge of the dyke like a violin string drawn tight. Then it surged
forward and swallowed up both boy and girl.
Some folk in Rothdam say that Hans dropped the book of black magic and
kissed Gretchen before the water swept over them, but the villagers are
not sure about this trifle, since at that moment they were watching the
rebirth of a lost world.
The wave of water a hundred feet high dwindled until it was no wave, but
only a few tall grasses swaying gently in the dying land breeze. The
clouds of fire faded to mist, pink tinted by the setting sun. Somewhere
about were roses.
The villagers rushed to the top of the dyke. A policeman who had muddied
his uniform as if by a fall rose to his feet and followed them, rubbing
his head. Far below the dyke lay a calm sea. On the horizon were ships.
"Rothdam and its brave citizens are saved," said the Mayor. "To-night I
will burn two hundred candles in honor of our patron saint, who has this
day delivered us and enabled us to continue a happy existence under the
best municipal government Rothdam has ever known." There were cheers.
That night Kahnale walked on the dyke alone. Everybody else was in the
cathedral. That is, everybody but one policeman, who pleaded a severe
headache. The magician listened to the bells of the cathedral and then
he shook his head. "It was not the saint who saved us," he muttered.
"There are no miracles. Somewhere there is a rational magical
explanation for all this." But he had to shake his head again. "It is
not in the books," he muttered.
Just then the moon came from behind a cloud and silvered some marks in
the path of Kahnale. The magician stooped and looked. There on the top
of the wave swept dyke, drawn in the loose sand, was a large heart, and
in the center of it was written "Gretchen."