 Section 5 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories, Volume 3 by Julian Hawthorne Editor. Section 5 My Wife's Tempture by Fitz James O'Brien 1. A Predestined Marriage Elsie and I were to be married in less than a week. It was rather a strange match, and I knew that some of our neighbors shook their heads over it and said that no good would come. The way it came to pass was thus. I loved Elsie Burns for two years, during which time she refused me three times. I could no more help asking her to have me, when the chance offered, than I could help breathing or living. To love her seemed natural to me as existence. I felt no shame, only sorrow, when she rejected me. I felt no shame either when I renewed my suit. The neighbors called me mean-spirited, to take up with any girl that had refused me as often as Elsie Burns had done. But what cared I about the neighbors? If it is black weather and the sun is under a cloud every day for a month, is that any reason why the poor farmer should not hope for the blue sky and the plentiful burst of warm light when the dark month is over? I never entirely lost heart. Do not, however, mistake me. I did not mope and moan and grow pale after the manner of poetical lovers. No such thing. I went bravely about my business, ate and drank as usual, laughed when the laugh went round, and slept soundly and woke refreshed. Yet all this time I loved, desperately loved, Elsie Burns. I went wherever I hoped to meet her, but did not haunt her with my attentions. I behaved to her as any friendly young man would have behaved. I met her and parted from her cheerfully. She was a good girl, too, and behaved well. She had me in her power. How a woman in Elsie's situation could have mortified a man in mine! But she never took the slightest advantage of it. She danced with me when I asked her, and had no foolish fears of allowing me to see her home of nights, after a ball was over, or of wandering with me through the pleasant New England fields, when the wildflowers made the paths like roads in fairyland. On the several disastrous occasions when I presented my suit I did it simply and manfully, telling her that I loved her very much, and would do everything to make her happy if she would be my wife. I made no fulsome protestations, and did not once allude to suicide. She, on the other hand, calmly and gravely thanked me for my good opinion, but with the same calm gravity rejected me. I used to tell her that I was grieved, that I would not press her, that I would wait and hope for some change in her feelings. She had an esteem for me, she would say, but could not marry me. I never asked her for any reasons. I hold it to be an insult to a woman of sense to demand her reasons on such an occasion. Enough for me that she did not then wish to be my wife, so that the old intercourse went on. She, cordial and polite as ever. I, never for one moment, doubting that the day would come when my roof-tree would shelter her, and we should smile together over our fireside at my long and indefatigable wooing. I will confess that at times I felt a little jealous, jealous of a man named Hammond Brake, who lived in our village. He was a weird, saturnine fellow who made no friends among the young men of the neighborhood, but who loved to go alone, with his books and his own thoughts for company. He was a studious, and I believe, a learned young man, and there was no avoiding the fact that he possessed considerable influence over Elsie. She liked to talk with him in corners, or in secluded nooks of the forest, when we all went out blackberry-gathering or picnicking. She read books that he gave her, and whenever a discussion arose relative to any topic, higher than those ordinary ones we usually canvassed, Elsie appealed to Brake for his opinion, as a disciple consulting a beloved master. I confess that for a time I feared this man as a rival. A little closer observation, however, convinced me that my suspicions were unfounded. The relation between Elsie and Hammond Brake were purely intellectual. She referenced his talents and requirements, but she did not love him. His influence over her, nevertheless, was nonetheless decided. In time, as I thought all along, Elsie yielded. I was what was considered a most eligible match, being tolerably rich, and Elsie's parents were most anxious to have me for a son-in-law. I was good-looking, and well-educated enough, and the old people, I believe, pertenaciously dined all my advantages into my little girl's ears. She battled against the marriage for a long time, with a strange persistence, all the more strange because she never alleged the slightest personal dislike to me. But after a vigorous candidateing from her own garrison, in which I am proud to say I did not in any way join, she hoisted the white flag and surrendered. I was very happy. I had no fear about being able to gain Elsie's heart. I think, indeed I know, that she liked me all along, and that her refusals were dictated by other feelings than those of a personal nature. I only guessed as much then. It was some time before I knew all. As the day approached for our wedding, Elsie did not appear at all stricken with woe. The village gossips had not the smallest opportunity for establishing a romance with a compulsory bride for the heroine. Yet to me it seemed as if there was something strange about her. A vague terror appeared to beset her. Even in her most loving moments, when resting in my arms, she would shrink away from me and shudder as if some cold wind had suddenly struck upon her. That it was caused by Noah version to me was evident, for she would, the moment after, as if to make amends, give me one of those voluntary kisses that are sweeter than all others. I reflected over this gravely, as was my custom, but could come to no conclusion. I dismissed it as one of those mysteries of maidenhood, which it is not given to man to fathom. The day came at length on which we were to be married. A glorious autumnal day, on which the sweet season of fruits and flowers seemed to have copied the kings of olds and roped itself in its brightest purple and golds in order to die with becoming splendour. The little village church was nearly filled with a bridal party and the curious crowd who came to see the persevering lover win his bride. Elsie was calm and grave and beautiful. The sober beauty of the autum itself seemed to tinge her face. Only once did she show any emotion. When the solemn question was put to her, the answer to which was to decide her destiny, I felt her hands, which was in mine, tremble. As she gasped out a convulsive, yes, she gave one brief imploring glance at the gallery on the right. I placed the ring upon her finger and looked in the direction in which she gazed. Hammond Brake's dark countenance was visible looking over the railings, and his eyes were bent sternly on Elsie. I turned quickly to my bride, but her brief emotion of whatever nature had vanished. She was looking at me anxiously and smiling, somewhat sadly, through her maiden's tears. I kissed her and whispered a loving word or two in her ear, at which she brightened, and her grave, decorous old father, and quaint tender-hearted mother, kissed her, and we rode all alone through glories of the autumn woods to our home. 2. The Strange Book The months went by quickly, and we were very happy. I learned that Elsie really loved me, and of my love for her she had proof long ago. I will not say that there was no cloud upon our little horizon. There was one, but it was so small and appeared so seldom that I scarcely feared it. The old vague terror seemed still to attack my wife. If I did not know her to be pure as heaven's snow, I would have said it was a remorse. At times she scarcely appeared to hear what I said, so deep would be her reverie. Nor did those moods seem pleasant ones. When wrapped in such, her sweet features would contract, as if in a hopeless effort to solve some mysterious problem. A sad pain, as it were, quivered in her white, drooped eyelids. One thing I particularly remarked. She spent hours at a time gazing at the west. There was a small room in our house, whose windows, every evening, flamed with the red light of the setting sun. Here Elsie would sit and gaze westward, so motionless and entranced, that it seemed as if her soul was going down with the day. Her conduct to me was curiously varied. She apparently loved me very much. Yet there were times when she absolutely avoided me. I have seen her strolling through the fields, and left the house with the intention of joining her. But the moment she caught sight of me approaching, she has fled into the neighboring cops, with so evident a wish to avoid me, that it would have been absolutely cruel to follow. Once or twice the old jealousy of him and Brake crossed my mind. But I was obliged to dismiss it as a frivolous suspicion. Nothing in my wife's conduct justified any such theory. Brake visited us once or twice a week. In fact, when I returned from my business in the village, I used to find him seated in the parlor with Elsie, reading some favorite author, or conversing on some novel literary topic. But there was no disposition to avoid my scrutiny. Brake seemed to come as a matter of right, and the perfect unconsciousness of furnishing any grounds for suspicion with which he acted was a sufficient answer to my mind for any wild doubts that my heart may have suggested. Still I could not but remark that Brake's visits were in some manner connected with Elsie's melancholy. On the days when he had appeared and departed, the gloom seemed to hang more thickly than ever over her head. She sat, on such occasions, all the evening at the western window, silently gazing at the cleft in the hills through which the sun passed to his repose. At last I made up my mind to speak to her. It seemed to me to be my duty, if she had a sorrow, to partake of it. I approached her on the matter with the most perfect confidence that I had nothing to learn beyond the existence of some girlish grief, which a confession and a few loving kisses would exercise for ever. Elsie I said to her one night, as she sat, according to her custom, gazing westward, like those maidens of the old balance of chivalry watching for the nights that never came. Elsie, what is the matter with you, darling? I have noticed a strange melancholy in you for some time past. Tell me all about it. She turned quickly round and gazed at me with eyes wide open and face filled with a sudden fear. Why do you ask me that, Mark? She answered. I have nothing to tell. From the strange, startled manner in which this reply was given, I felt convinced that she had something to tell, and instantly formed a determination to discover what it was. A pang shot through my heart as I thought that the woman whom I held dearer than anything on earth hesitated to trust me with a petty secret. Elsie I said, don't treat me as if I were a grand inquisitor with rags and thumb-screws in readiness for you if you prove condemnation. You need not look at me in that frightened way. I'm not an ogre child. I don't breakfast on nice, cosy little women five months married. Supposing you do owe a bill to the milliner in Boston, what does it matter? I'm tolerably rich. How much is it? I knew perfectly well that she did not owe any such bill, but it was a mode of testing her. A look of relief passed over her features as I spoke. Mark, she said, stroking my hair with her little hand and smiling faintly. You're a goose. I don't owe any bill to the milliner in Boston, and I have no secret worth knowing. I know I'm a little melancholy at times. I feel weary, but that is not unnatural, you know, just now. Mark, dear, kissing me on the lips, you must bear with my moods for a little while until there are three of us, and then I'll be a better company. I knew what she alluded to, but God helped me. I felt sad enough at the moment, though I kissed her back and ceased to question her. I felt sad because my instinct told me that she deceived me, and it is very hard to be deceived even in trifles by those we love. I left her sitting at her favourite window and walked out into the fields. I wanted to think. I remained out until I saw lights in the pilar shining through the dusky evening. Then I returned slowly. As I passed the windows, which were near the ground, our house being cottage-built, I looked in. Hem and Brake was sitting with my wife. She was sitting in a rocking-chair opposite to him, holding a small volume open on her lap. Brake was talking to her very earnestly, and she was listening to him with an expression I had never before seen on her countenance. All fear and admiration were all blunt together in those dilating eyes. She seemed absorbed, body and soul, in what this man said. I shuddered at the sight. A vague terror seized upon me. I hastened into the house. As I entered the room rather suddenly, my wife started and hastily concealed a little volume that lay on her lap in one of her wide pockets. As she did so, a loose leaf escaped from the volume and slowly fluttered to the floor, unobserved by either her or her companion. But I had my eye upon it. I felt that it was a clue. What new novel or philosophical wonder have you both been pouring over? I asked quite gaily, stealthily watching, at the same time the telltale embarrassment under which Elsie was labouring. Brake, who was not in the least discomposed, replied, That, said he, is a secret which must be kept from you. It is an advance copy. It is not to be shown to any one except your wife. Ha! cried I. I know what it is. It is your volume of poems that Tychnor is publishing. Well, I can wait until it is regularly for sale. I knew that Brake had a volume in the hands of the publishing house I mentioned, with a vague promise of publication some time in the present century. Hammond smiled significantly, but did not reply. He evidently wished to cultivate this supposed impression of mine. Elsie looked relieved, and heaved a deep sigh. I felt more than ever convinced that a secret was beneath all this. So I drew my chair over the fallen leaf that lay unnoticed on the carpet, and talked and laughed with Hammond Brake gaily, as if nothing was on my mind, while all the time a great load of suspicion lay heavily at my heart. At length Hammond Brake rose to go. I wished him good night, but did not offer to accompany him to the door. My wife supplied this omitted courtesy, as I had expected. The moment I was alone I picked up the book-leaf from the floor. It was not the leaf of a volume of poems. Beyond that, however, I learned nothing. It contained a string of paragraphs, printed in the Biblical fashion, and the language was Biblical in style. It seemed to be a portion of some religious book. Was it possible that my wife was being converted to the Romish faith? Yes, that was it. Brake was a Jesuit in disguise. I had heard of such things, and had stolen into the bosom of my family to plant there his destructive errors. There could be no longer any doubt of it. This was some portion of a Romish book, some infamous Popish publication, full that I was not to see it all before. But there was yet time. I would forbid him the house. I had just formed this resolution when my wife entered. I put the strange leaf in my pocket and took my hat. Why, you are not going out, surely? cried Elsie, surprised. I have a headache, I answered. I will take a short walk. Elsie looked at me with a peculiar air of distrust. Her woman's instinct told her that there was something wrong. Before she could question me, however, I had left the room and was walking rapidly on him and Brake's track. He heard the footsteps, and I saw his figure, black against the sky, stop and peer back through the dusk to see who was following him. It was I, Brake, I called out, Stop! I wish to speak with you. He stopped and in a minute or so we were walking side by side along the road. My fingers itched at that moment to be on his throat. I commenced the conversation. Brake, I said, I'm a very plain sort of man, and I never say anything without good reason. What I came after you to tell you is that I don't wish you to come to my house any more or to speak with Elsie any farther than the ordinary salutations go. It's no joke. I'm quite an earnest. Brake started, and, stopping short, faced me suddenly in the road. What have I done? he asked. You surely are too sensible a man to be jealous, Dayton. Oh! I answered scornfully. Not jealous in the ordinary sense of the word a bit, but I don't think your company, good company, for my wife, Brake. If you will have it out of me, I suspect you of being a Roman Catholic and of trying to convert my wife. A smile shot across his face, and I saw his sharp white teeth gleam for an instant in the dusk. Well, what if I am a papist? he said, with a strange tone of triumph in his voice. The faith is not criminal. Besides, what proof have you that I was attempting to proselyte your wife? This, said I, pulling the leaf from my pocket. This leaf from one of those devilish papist books you and she were reading this evening. I picked it up from the floor. Proof enough, I think. In an instant Brake had snatched the leaf from my hand and torn it into atoms. You shall be obeyed, he said. I will not speak with Elsie as long as she is your wife. Good night. You think I'm a papist then, Dayton? You're a clever fellow. And with a rather sneering chuckle he marched on along the road and vanished into the darkness. Three. The secret discovered. Brake came no more. I said nothing to Elsie about his prohibition, and his name was never mentioned. It seemed strange to me that she should not speak of his absence, and I was very much puzzled by her silence. Her moodiness seemed to have increased, and what was most remarkable, in proportion as she grew more and more reserved, the intenser were the bursts of affection which she exhibited for me. She would strain me to her bosom and kiss me, as if she and I were about to be parted forever. Then for hours she would remain sitting at her window, silently gazing, with that terrible, wistful gaze of hers, at the West. I will confess to having watched my wife at this time. I could not help it. That some mystery hung about her, I felt convinced. I must fathom it or die. Her honour I never for a moment doubted. Yet there seemed to weigh continually upon me the prophecy of some awful domestic calamity. This time the prophecy was not in vain. About three weeks after I had forbidden break my house, I was strolling over my farm in the evening, apparently inspecting my agriculture, but in reality speculating on that topic which laterally was ever present to me. There was a little knoll covered with evergreen oaks at the end of the lawn. It was a picturesque spot, for on one side the bank went off into a sheer precipice of about eighty feet in depth, at the bottom of which a pretty pool lay, that in the summer time was fringed with white water lilies. I had thought of building a summer house in this spot, and now my steps mechanically directed themselves toward the place. As I approached I heard voices. I stopped and listened eagerly. A few seconds enabled me to ascertain that Hammond break and my wife were in the cops talking together. She still followed him then, and he, scoundrel that he was, had broken his promise. A fury seemed to fill my veins as I made this discovery. I felt the impulse strong upon me to rush into the grove, and then and there strangle the villain who was poisoning my peace. But with a powerful effort I restrained myself. It was necessary that I should overhear what was said. I threw myself flat on the grass, and so glided silently into the cops until I was completely within earshot. This was what I heard. My wife was sobbing. So soon, so soon? I, Hammond, give me a little time. I cannot, Elsie. My chief orders me to join him. You must prepare to accompany me. No, no, murmured Elsie. He loves me so, and I love him, our child, too. How can I rob him of our unborn babe? Another sheep for our flock. Answered break solemnly. Elsie, do you forget your oath? Are you one of us, or are you a common hypocrite, who will be of us until the hour of self-sacrifice, and then fly like a coward? Elsie, you must leave tonight. Ah, my husband, my husband! Solved the unhappy woman. You have no husband, woman, cried break harshly. I promised break not to speak to you as long as you were his wife. But the vow was annulled before it was made. Your husband in God yet awaits you. You will be blessed with a true spouse. I feel as if I were going to die, cried Elsie. How can I ever forsake him? He who was so good to me. Nonsense! No weakness. He is not worthy of you. Go home and prepare for your journey. You know where to meet me. I will have everything ready. And by daybreak there shall be no trace of us left. Beware of permitting your husband to suspect anything. He is not very shrewd at such things. He thought I was a Jesuit in disguise. But we had better be careful. Go, you have been too long here already. Bless you, sister. A few faint sobs, a rustling of leaves, and I knew that break was alone. I rose, and stepped silently into the open space in which he stood. His back was toward me. His arms were lifted high over his head with an exultant gesture. And I could see his profile as it slightly turned toward me, illuminated with a smile of scornful triumph. I put my hand suddenly on his throat, from behind, and flung him on the ground before he could utter a cry. Not a word, I said, unclasping a short-bladed knife which I carried. Answer my questions, or by heaven I will cut your throat from ear to ear. He looked up into my face with an unflinching eye, and set his lips as if resolved to suffer all. What are you? Who are you? What object have you in the seduction of my wife? He smiled, but was silent. Ah, you won't answer. We'll see. I pressed the knife slowly against his throat. His face contracted smasmodically. But although a thin red thread of blood sprang out along the edge of the blade, break remained mute. An idea suddenly seized me. This sort of death had no terrors for him. I would try another. There was the precipice. I was twice as powerful as he was, so I seized him in my arms, and in a moment transported him to the margin of the steep, smooth cliff, the edge of which was garnished with the tough stems of the wild vine. He seemed to feel it was useless to struggle with me, so allowed me passively to roll him over the edge. When he was suspended in the air, I gave him a vine-stem to cling to, and let him go. He swung at a height of eighty feet, with face upturned in pale. He dared not look down. I seated myself on the edge of the cliff, and with my knife began to cut into the thick vine, a foot or two above the place of his grasp. I was correct in my calculation. His terror was too much for him. As he saw the notch in the vine getting deeper and deeper, his determination gave way. I'll answer you, he gasped out, gazing at me with starting eyeballs. What do you ask? What are you, was my question, as I ceased cutting at the stem. A Mormon was the answer, uttered with a quick groan. Take me up, my hands are slipping, quick, and you wanted my wife to follow you to that infernal Salt Lake city, I suppose. For God's sake, release me. I'll quit the place, never to come back. Do help me up. Dayton, I'm falling. I felt mightily inclined to let the villain drop, but it did not suit my purpose to be hung for murder, so I swung him back again over the Swart, where he fell panting and exhausted. Will you quit the place tonight? I said. You'd better. By heaven if you don't, I'll tell all the men in the village, and we'll lynch you, as sure as your name is break. I'll go, I'll go, he groaned. I swear never to trouble you again. You ought to be hanged, you villain. Be off. He slunk away through the trees like a beaten dog, and I went home in a state bordering on despair. I found Elsie crying. She was sitting by the window as of old. I knew now why she gazed so constantly at the west. It was her mecca. Something in my face, I suppose, told her that I was laboring under great excitement. She rose startled as soon as I entered the room. Elsie, said I, I am come to take you home. Home? Why, I am at home, am I not? What do you mean? No. This is no longer your home. You have deceived me. You are a Mormon, I know all. You have become a convert to that apostle of hell, Brigham Young, you cannot live with me. I love you still, Elsie, dearly, but you must go and live with your father. She saw there was no appeal from my word, and with a face hopeless with despair, she arranged her dress and passively went with me. I live in the same village with my wife, and yet am not a widower. She is very penitent, they say. Yet I cannot bring myself to believe that one who has allowed the Mormon poison to enter her veins can ever be cured. People say that we shall come together again, but I know better. Mine is not the first hearth that Mormonism has rendered desolate. End of Section 5 Recording by Katie Riley. May 2010. A Drowning Man Clutching at a Straw Such as Dr. Fenwick, hero of Buller-Lighten's strange story, when he determines to lend himself to alleged magic in the hope of saving his suffering wife from the physical dangers which have succeeded her mental disease. The proposition has been made to him by Margrave, a wanderer in many countries who has followed the Fenwicks from England to Australia. Margrave declares that he needs an accomplice to secure an elixir of life, which his own failing strength demands. His mysterious mesmeric or hypnotic influence over Mrs. Fenwick had in former days been marked, and on the basis of this undeniable fact he's endeavored to show that his own welfare and Mrs. Fenwick's are, in some occult fashion, knit together, and that only by aiding him in some extraordinary experiment can the physician snatch his beloved Lillian from her impending doom. As the first chapter opens, Fenwick is learning his wife's condition from his friend Dr. Faber. I believe that for at least 12 hours there will be no change in her state. I believe also that if she recover from it, calm and refreshed as from asleep, the danger of death will have passed away. And for 12 hours my presence would be hurtful? Rather say fatal if my diagnosis be right? I wrung my friend's hand and we parted. Oh, to lose her now, now that her love and her reason had both returned each more vivid than before? Feudal indeed might be Margraves' boasted secret, but at least in that secret was hope. In recognized science I saw only despair, and at that thought all dread of this mysterious visitor vanished, all anxiety to question more of his attributes or his history. His life itself became to me dear and precious. What if it should fail me in the steps of the process, whatever that was, by which the life of my Lillian might be saved? The shades of evening were now closing in. I remembered that I had left Margraves without even food for many hours. I stole a round to the back of the house, filled a basket with elements more generous than those of the former day, extracted fresh drugs from my stores, and thus laden hurried back to the hut. I found Margraves in the room below, seated on his mysterious coffer, leaning his face on his hand. When I entered he looked up and said, You have neglected me. My strength is waning. Give me more of the cordial, for we have worked before us tonight, and I need support. He took for granted my assent to his wild experiment, and he was right. I administered the cordial. I placed food before him, and this time he did not eat with repugnance. I poured out wine, and he drank it sparingly, but with ready compliance, saying, In perfect health I looked upon wine as poison. Now it is like a foretaste of the glorious elixir. After he thus recruited himself, he seemed to acquire an energy that startlingly contrasted with his languor the day before. The effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible. The color came back to his cheeks, his bended frame rose elastic and direct. If I understood you rightly, said I, the experiment you ask me to aid can be accomplished in a single night? In a single night. This night. Command me, why not begin at once? What apparatus or chemical agencies do you need? Ah! said Margrave. Formerly how I was misled. Formerly how my conjectures blundered. I thought when I asked you to give a month to the experiment I wish to make, that I should need the subtlest skill of the chemist. I then believed, with Van Helment, that the principle of life is a gas, and that the secret was but in the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered. But now, all that I need is contained in this coffer. Save one very simple material. Fuel, sufficient for a steady fire for six hours. I see even that is at hand piled up in your outhouse, and now for the substance itself. To that you must guide me. Explain. Near this very spot is there not gold in mines yet undiscovered and gold of the purest metal? There is. What then? Do you with the alchemist blend in one discovery gold in life? No. But it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man produces gold that the substance from which the great pabulum of life is extracted by Furment can be found. Possibly in the attempts at that transmutation of metals which I think your own great chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy, allowed might be possible, but held not to be worth the cost of the process. Possibly in those attempts the anti-grains of this substance were found by the alchemist in the crucible. With grains of the metal is niggardly yielded by pitiful mimicry of nature's stupendous laboratory. And from such grains enough of the essence might perhaps have been drawn forth to add a few years of existence to some feeble gray beard granting what rests on no proofs that some of the alchemist reached an age rarely given to man. But it is not in the miserly crucible it's in the matrix of nature herself that we must seek in prolific abundance nature's grand principle, life. As the lodestone is rife with the magnetic virtue as amber contains the electric so in this substance to which we yet want a name is found the bright life-giving fluid. In the old gold mines of Asia and Europe the substance exists but can rarely be met with. The soul for its nutriment is well nigh exhausted it's here where nature herself is all vital with youth that the nutriment of youth must be sought. Near this spot is gold guide me to it. You cannot come with me the place which I know as a riferous is some miles distance the way rugged you cannot walk to it it is true I have horses but do you think I've come this distance and not foreseen and forestalled do I want for my object trouble yourself not with conjectures how I can arrive at the place I've provided the means to arrive at and leave it my litter and its bearers are in reach of my call give me your arm to the rising ground fifty yards from your door I obeyed mechanically stifling all surprise I'd made my resolve and admitted no thought that could shake it when we reached the summit of the grassy hillock which sloped from the road that led to the seaport margrave after pausing to recover breath lifted up his voice in a key not loud but shrill and slow and prolonged half cry and half chant like the night hawks through the air so limp and still bringing near far objects far sounds the voice pierced its way artfully pausing till wave after wave of the atmosphere bore and transmitted it on in a few minutes the call seemed re-echoed so exactly so cheerily that for the moment I thought that the note was the mimicry of the shy mocking lyre bird which mimics so merrily all that it hears in its coverts from the war of the locust to the howl of the wild dog what king said the mystical charmer and as he spoke he carelessly rested his hand on my shoulder so that I trembled to feel that this dread son of nature godless and soulless who had been and my heart whispered who still could be my bane and mind darken her leaned upon me for support as the spoiled younger born on his brother what king said this cynical mocker with his beautiful boyish face what king in your civilized Europe has the sway of a chief of the east what link is so strong between mortal and mortal as that between lord and slave I transport yawn poor fools from the land of their birth they preserve here their old habits obedience and awe they would wait till they starved in the solitude wait to harken and answer my call and I who thus rule them or charm them I use and despise them they know that and yet serve me between you and me my philosopher there is but one thing worth living for life for oneself is it age is it youth that thus shocks all my sense in my solemn completeness of man perhaps in great capitals young men of pleasure will answer it is youth and we think what he says young friends I do not believe you 2 along the grass track I saw now under the moon just risen a strange procession never seen before in Australian pastures it moved on noiselessly but quickly we descended the hillock and met it on the way a sable litter born by four men in unfamiliar eastern garments two other servitors more bravely dressed with yadigans and silver hilted pistols in their belts preceded this somber equipage perhaps margrave divined the disdainful thought that passed through my mind vaguely and half unconsciously for he said with a hollow bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peel of his once melodious mirth a little leisure and a little gold and your raw colonists too will have the tastes of apasha I made no answer I'd cease to care who and what was my tempter to me his whole being was resolved into one problem had he a secret by which death could be turned from Lillian but now as the litter halted from the long dark shadow which it cast upon the turf the figure of a woman emerged and stood before us the outlines of her shape were lost in the loose folds of a black mantle and the features of her face were hidden by a black veil except only the dark bright solemn eyes her stature was lofty her bearing majestic whether in movement or repose Margrave accosted her in some language unknown to me she replied in what seemed to me the same tongue the tones of her voice were sweet but inexpressibly mournful the words that they uttered appeared intended to warn or deprecate or dissuade but they called to Margrave's brow a lowering frown and drew from his lips a burst of sugar the woman rejoined in the same melancholy music of voice and Margrave then leaning his arm upon her shoulder as he had leaned it on mine drew her away from the group into a neighboring cops of the flowering eucalypti mystic trees never changing the hues of their pale green leaves ever shifting the tints of their ash grey shedding bark for some moments I gazed on the two human forms seen by the glinting moonlight through the gaps in the foliage then turning away my eyes I saw standing close at my side a man whom I had not noticed before his footstep as it stole to me had fallen on the sword without sound his dress though oriental differed from that of his companions both in shape and color fitting close to the breast leaving the arms bare to the elbow and of a uniform ghastly white as are the seriments of the grave his visage was even darker than those of the Syrians or Arabs behind him and his features were those of a bird of prey the beak of the eagle but the eye of the vulture his cheeks were hollow the arms crossed on his breast were long and fleshless yet in that skeleton form there was something which conveyed the idea of a serpents suppleness and strength and as the hungry watchful eyes met my own startled gaze I recoiled impulsively with that inward warning of danger which is conveyed to a man as to inferior animals in the very aspect of the creatures that sting or devour at my movement the man inclined his head in the submissive eastern salutation and spoke in his foreign tongue softly humbly fawningly to judge by his tone and his gesture I moved yet farther away from him with loathing and now the human thought flashed upon me was I in truth exposed to no danger in trusting myself to the mercy of the weird and remorseless master of those hirelings from the east seven men in number two at least of them formidably armed and docile as bloodhounds to the hunter who has only to show them their prey but fear of man like myself is not my weakness where fear found its way to my heart it was through the doubts or the fancies in which man like myself disappeared in the attributes dark and unknown which we give to a fiend or a specter and perhaps if I could have paused to analyze my own sensations the very presence of this escort creatures of flesh and blood lessened the dread of my incomprehensible tempter rather a hundred times I can defy those seven eastern slaves I, haughty son of the Anglo-Saxon who conquers all races because he fears no odds then have seen again on the walls of my threshold the luminous bodyless shadow besides Lillian Lillian for one chance of saving her life however wild and chimerical that chance might be I would have shrunk not a foot from the march of an army thus reassured and thus resolved I advanced with a smile of disdain to meet Margrave and his veiled companion as they now came from the moonlit cops well I said to him with an irony that unconsciously mimicked his own have you taken advice with your nurse I assumed that the dark form by your side is that of Aisha the woman looked at me from her sable veil with her steadfast solemn eyes and said in English though with a foreign accent the nurse born in Asia is but wise through her love the pale son of Europe is wise through his art the nurse says forbear do you say adventure peace exclaimed Margrave stamping his foot on the ground I take no counsel from either it is for me to resolve for you to obey and for him to aid night is come and we waste it move on the woman made no reply nor did I he took my arm and walked back to the hut the barbaric escort followed when we reached the door of the building Margrave said a few words to the woman and to the litter bearers they entered the hut with us Margrave pointed out to the woman his coffer to the men the fuel both were born away and placed within the litter meanwhile I took from the table on which it was carelessly thrown the light hatchet that I habitually carried with me in my rambles do you think that you need that idle weapon do you fear the good faith of my swarthy attendants nay, take the hatchet yourself its use is to sever the gold from the quartz in which we may find it embedded or to clear as this shovel which will also be needed from the slight soil above it the oar that the mine and the mountain flings forth as the sea casts its waves on the sand give me your hand fellow laborer said Margrave joyfully ah, there is no faltering terror in this pulse I was not mistaken in the man what rest but the place and the hour I shall live I shall live Margrave now entered the litter and the veiled woman drew the black curtains round him I walked on as the guide some yards in advance the air was still, heavy and parched with the breath of the Australasian Sirocco we passed through the meadowlands studded with slumbering flocks we followed the branch of the creek which was linked to its source in the mountains by many a trickling waterfall we threaded the gloom of stunted misshapen trees gnarled with the stringy bark which makes one of the signs of the strata that nourish gold and at length the moon now in all her pomp of light mid-heaven among her subject stars gleamed through the fissures of the cave on whose floor lay the relics of antediluvian races and rested in one flood of silvery splendor upon the hollows of the extinct volcano with tufts of dank herbage and wide spaces of paler-sward covering the gold below gold, the dumb symbol of organized matters great mystery storing in itself according as mind the informer of matter can distinguish its uses evil and good, bane and blessing hither too the veiled woman had remained in the rear with the white-robed skeleton-like image that had crept to my side unawares with its noiseless step thus in each winding turn of the difficult path at which the convoy following behind me came into sight I had seen, first the two gaily-dressed armed men next the black, beer-like litter and last the black veiled woman in the white-robed skeleton but now as I halted on the table-land backed by the mountain and fronting the valley the woman left her companion passed by the litter in the armed men and paused by my side at the mouth of the moonlit cavern there for a moment she stood, silent the possession below mounting upward laboriously and slow then she turned to me and her veil was withdrawn the face on which I gazed was wondrously beautiful and severely awful there was neither youth nor age but beauty, mature and majestic as that of the marble demeter do you believe in that which you seek? she asked in her foreign melodious melancholy accents I have no belief was my answer true science has none true science questions all things takes nothing upon credit it knows but three states of the mind denial, conviction and that vast interval between the two which is not belief but suspense of judgment the woman let fall her veil moved from me and seated herself on a crag above that cleft between mountain and creek to which when I'd first discovered the gold that the land nourished the rain from the clouds had given the rushing life of the cataract but which now in the drought and the hush of the skies was but a dead pile of stones the litter now ascended the height its bearers halted a lean hand tore the curtains aside and margrave descended leaning this time not on the black veiled woman but on the white-robed skeleton there as he stood the moon shone full on his wasted form on his face resolute, cheerful and proud despite its hollowed outlines and sick-lead hues he raised his head spoke in the language unknown to me and the armed men and the litter bearers grouped round him, bending low their eyes fixed on the ground the veiled woman rose slowly and came to his side motioning away with a mute sign the ghastly form on which he leaned and passing round him silently instead her own sustaining arm margrave spoke again a few sentences of which I could not even guess the meaning when he'd concluded the armed men and the litter bearers came nearer to his feet knelt down and kissed his hand they then rose look from the beer-like vehicle the coffer and the fuel this done they lifted again the litter and again preceded by the armed men the procession descended down the sloping hillside down into the valley below margrave now whispered for some moments into the ear of the hideous creature who'd made way for the veiled woman the grim skeleton bowed his head submissively and strode noiselessly away through the long grasses the slender stems trampled under his stealthy feet relifting themselves as after a passing wind and thus he too sank out of sight down into the valley below on the table-land of the hill remained only we three margrave, myself and the veiled woman she had receded herself apart on the gray crag above the dried torrent he stood at the entrance of the cavern round the sides of which clustered parasital plants with flowers of all colors some among them opening their petals and exhaling their fragrance only in the hours of night so that as his form filled up the jaws of the dull arch obscuring the moonbeam that strove to pierce the shadows that slept within it stood now wan and blighted as I'd seen at first radiant and joyous literally framed in blooms so said margrave turning to me under the soil that spreads around us lies the gold which to you and to me is at this moment of no value except as a guide to its twin-born the regenerator of life you have not yet described to me the nature of the substance which we are to explore nor the process by which the virtues you impute to it are to be extracted let us first find the gold and instead of describing the life amber so let me call it I will point it out to your own eyes as to the process your share in it is so simple that you will ask me why I seek aid from a chemist the life amber when found has but to be subjected to heat and fermentation for six hours it'll be placed in a small cauldron which that coffer contains over the fire which that fuel will feed to give effect to the process certain alkalis and other ingredients are required but these are prepared and mine is the task to commingle them from your science as chemist I need and ask not in you I've sought only the aid of a man if that be so why indeed seek me at all why not confide in those swarthy attendants who doubtless are slaves to your orders confide in slaves when the first task enjoined to them would be to discover and refrain from perloining gold seven such unscrupulous naives or even one such and I thus defenseless and feeble such is not the work that wise masters confide to fierce slaves but that's the least of the reasons which exclude them from my choice and fix my choice of assistant on you do you forget what I told you of the danger which the dervish declared no bribe I could offer could tempt him a second time to brave I remember now those words had passed away from my mind and because they'd passed away from your mind I chose you for my comrade I need a man by whom danger is scorned but in the process of which you tell me I see no possible danger unless the ingredients you mix in your cauldron have poisonous fumes it is not that the ingredients I use are not poisons what other danger except you dread your own eastern slaves but if so why lead them to these solitudes and if so why not bid me be armed the eastern slaves fulfilling my commands wait for my summons where their eyes cannot see what we do the danger is of a kind in which the boldest son of the east would be more craven perhaps than the daintiest who would shrink from a panther and laugh at a ghost in the creed of the dervish and of all who adventure into that realm of nature which is closed to philosophy and open to magic there are races in the magnitude of space unseen as animal cules in the world of a drop for the tribes of the drop science has its microscope of the host of yawn azure infinite magic gains sight and through them gains command factors that link all the parts of creation of these races some are wholly indifferent to man some benign to him and some deadly hostile in all the regular and prescribed conditions of mortal being this magic realm seems as blank and tenetless as yawn vacant air but when a seeker of powers beyond the rude functions by which man plies the clockwork that measures his hours and stops when its chain reaches the end of its coil strives to pass over those boundaries at which philosophy says knowledge ends then he is like all other travelers in regions unknown he must propitiate or brave the tribes that are hostile must depend for his life on the tribes that are friendly though your science discredits the alchemist dogmas your learning informs you that all alchemists were not ignorant imposters yet those whose discoveries prove them to have been the nearest allies to your practical knowledge ever hint in their mystical works at the reality of that realm which is open to magic ever hint that some means less familiar than furnace and bellows are essential to him who explores the elixir of life he who once quaffs that elixir obtains in his very veins the bright fluid by which he transmits the form of his will to agencies dormant in nature to giants unseen in the space and here as he passes the boundary which divides his allotted and normal mortality from the regions and races that magic alone can explore so here he breaks down the safeguard between himself and the tribes that are hostile is it not ever thus between man and man let a race the most gentle and timid and civilized dwell on one side a river or mountain and another have home in the region beyond each if it pass not the intervening barrier may with each live in peace but if ambitious adventurers scale the mountain or cross the river with design to subdue and enslave the population they boldly invade then all the invaded arise in wrath and defiance the neighbors are changed into foes and therefore this process by which a simple though rare material of nature is made to yield to a mortal the boon of a life which brings with its glorious resistance to time desires and faculties to subject to its service beings that dwell in the earth and the air and the deep has ever been one of the same peril which an invader must brave when he crosses the bounds of his nation by this key alone you unlock all the cells of the alchemist's lore by this alone understand how a labor which a chemist, crudist, apprentice could perform to uphold the giant fathers of all your dwarfed children of science nature that stores this priceless boon seems to shrink from conceding it to man the invisible tribes that abhor him oppose themselves to the gain that might give them a master the duller of those who were the life seekers of old would have told you how some chance trivial, unlooked for foiled their grand hope at the very point of fruition some improvident oversight an defect in the sulfur a wild overflow in the quick silver or a flaw in the bellows or a pupil who failed to replenish the fuel by falling asleep by the furnace the invisible foes seldom vouchsafe to make themselves visible where they can frustrate the bungler as they mock at his toils from their ambush but the mightier adventurers equally foiled and despite of their patience and skill would have said not with us rest the fault we neglected no caution we failed from no oversight but out from the cauldron dread faces arose and the specters or demons dismayed and baffled us such then is the danger which seems so appalling to a son of the east as it seemed to a seer in the dark age of Europe but we can deride all its threats you and I for myself I own frankly the safety that the charms and resources of magic bestow you for your safety have the cultured and disciplined reason which reduces all fantasies to nervous impressions and I rely on the courage of one who has questioned unquailing the luminous shadow and rested from the hands of the magician himself the wand which concentered the wonders of will to this strange and long discourse I listened without interruption and now quietly answered I do not merit the trust you affect in my courage but I'm now on my guard against the cheats of the fancy and the fumes of a vapor can scarcely bewilder the brain in the open air of this mountain land I believe in no races like those which you tell me lie viewless in space as do gases I believe not in magic I ask not its aids and I dread not its terrors for the rest I'm confident of one mournful courage the courage that comes from despair I submit to your guidance whatever it be as a sufferer whom colleges doom to the grave submits to the quack who says take my specific and live my life is not in itself my life lives in another you and I are both brave from despair you would turn death from yourself I would turn death from what I love more than myself both know how little aid we can win from the colleges and both therefore turn to the promises most audaciously cheering dervish or magician alchemist or phantom what care you and I and if they fail us what then they cannot fail us more than the colleges do five the gold has been gained with an easy labor I knew where to seek for it whether under the turf or in the bed of the creek but margrave's eyes hungrily gazing round every spot from which the ore was disparied could not detect the substance of which he alone knew the outward appearance I'd begun to believe that even in the description given to him of this material he had been credulously duped and that no such material existed when coming back from the bed in the water course I saw a faint yellow gleam amidst the roots of a giant parasite plant the leaves and blossoms of which climbed up the sides of the cave with its anti-diluvian relics the gleam was the gleam of gold and on removing the loose earth round the roots of the plant we came on no, I'll not, I dare not describe it the gold digger would cast it aside the naturalist would pause not to heed it and did I describe it and chemistry deigned to subject it to analysis could chemistry alone detach or discover its boasted virtues its particles indeed are very minute not seeming readily to crystallize with each other each in itself of uniform shape and size spherical as the egg which contains the germ of life and small as the egg from which the life of an insect may quicken but margrave's keen eye caught the atoms upcast by the light of the moon he exclaimed to me found I shall live and then as he gathered up the grains with tremulous hands he called out to the veiled woman hitherto still seated motionless on the crag at his word she rose and went to the place hard by where the fuel was piled busying herself there I had no leisure to heed her I continued my search in the soft building soil that time and the decay of vegetable life had accumulated over the pre-atomite strata on which the arch of the cave rested its mighty keystone when we had collected of these particles about thrice as much as a man might hold in his hand we seem to have exhausted their bed we continued still to find gold but no more of the delicate substance to which in our sight gold was as dross enough and then said Margrave reluctantly dissisting what we have gained already will suffice for a life thrice as long as legend attributes to Haroun I shall live I shall live through the centuries forget not that I claim my share your share yours true your half of my life it is true he paused with a low ironical malignant laugh and then added as he rose and turned away but the work is yet to be done six while we had thus labored and found Ayesha had placed the fuel where the moonlight fell fullest on the sword of the table land a part of it already piled as for a fire the rest of it heaped confusedly close at hand and by the pile she had placed the coffer and there she stood her arms folded under her mantle her dark image seeming darker still as the moonlight whitened all the ground from which the image rose motionless Margrave opened his coffer the veiled woman did not aid him and I watched in silence while he is silently made his weird and wizard like preparations seven on the ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod tipped apparently with sponge some combustible naphthalike fluid so that a pale lambant flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave guided it burning up the herbage over which it played and leaving a distinct ring like that which in our lovely native fable talk we called the fairies ring but yet more visible because marked in phosphorescent light on the ring thus formed were placed twelve small lamps fed with the fluid from the same vessel and lighted by the same rod the light emitted by the lamps was more vivid and brilliant than that which circled round the ring within the circumference and immediately round the wood pile Margrave traced certain geometrical figures in which not without a shutter that I overcame at once by a strong effort of will in murmuring to myself the name of Lillian I recognized the interlaced triangles which my own hand in the spell enforced on a sleepwalker had described on the floor of the wizard pavilion the figures were traced like the circle in flame and at the point of each triangle foreign number was placed a lamp brilliant as those on the ring this task performed the cauldron based on an iron tripod was placed on the wood pile and then the woman before inactive and unheating slowly advanced knelt by the pile and lighted it the dry wood crackled and the flame burst forth licking the rims of the cauldron with tongues of fire Margrave flung into the cauldron the particles we had collected poured over them first to liquid colorless as water from the largest of the vessels drawn from his coffer and then more sparingly drops from small crystal files like the files I'd seen in the hand of the cauldron having surmounted my first impulse of awe I watched these proceedings curious yet disdainful as one who watches the mummeries of an enchanter on the stage if, thought I, these are but artful devices to inebriate and fool my own imagination my imagination is on its guard and reason shall not this time sleep at her post and now, said Margrave I can sign to you the easy task by which you are to merit your share of the elixir it is my task to feed and replenish the cauldron it is Ayesha's to feed the fire which must not for a moment relax in its measured and steady heat your task is the lightest of all it is but to renew from this vessel the fluid that burns in the lamps and on the ring observe the contents of the vessel must be thriftily husbanded there is enough, but not more than enough to sustain the light in the lamps on the lines traced round the cauldron and on the farther ring for six hours the compounds dissolved in this fluid are scarce only obtainable in the east and even in the east months might have passed before I could have increased my supply I had no months to waste replenish then the light only when it begins to flicker or fade take heed above all that no part of the outer ring no, not an inch and no lamp of the twelve that are to its zodiac like stars fade for one moment in darkness I took the crystal vessel from his hand the vessel is small, said I and what is yet left of its contents is but scanty whether its drops suffice to replenish the lights I cannot guess I can but obey your instructions but more important by far than the light to the lamps in the circle which in Asia or Africa might scare away the wild beasts unknown to this land more important than light to a lamp is the strength to your frame weak magician what will support you through six weary hours of night watch hope answered Margrave with a rave as old dazzling style hope I shall live through the centuries End of Section 6 Section 7 of Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 3 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories Volume 3 by Julian Hawthorne Editor Section 7 The Incantation Part 2 by Boer Leighton 8 One hour passed away the faggots under the cauldron burned clear in the sullen sultry air the materials within began to see and their color at first dull and turbid changed into a pale rose hue from time to time the veiled woman replenished the fire after she had done so receding herself close by the pyre with her head bowed over her knees and her face hid under her veil the lights in the lamps and along the ring and the triangles now began to pale I resupplied their nutriment from the crystal vessel as yet nothing strange startled my eye or my ear beyond the rim of the circle nothing audible save at a distance wheel-like click of the locusts and farther still in the forest the howl of the wild dogs that never bark nothing visible but the trees and the mountain range girding the plains silvered by the moon in the arch of the cavern the flush of wild blooms on its sides and the gleam of dry bones on its floor where the moonlight shot into the gloom the second hour passed like the first I had taken my stand by the side of Margrave watching with him the process at work in the cauldron when I felt the ground slightly vibrate beneath my feet and looking up it seemed as if all the plains beyond the circle were heaving like the swell of the sea and as if in the air itself there was a perceptible tremor I placed my hand on Margrave's shoulder and whispered to me earth and air seemed to vibrate to you I know not I care not the essence is bursting the shell that can find it here are my air and my earth trouble me not look to the circle feed the lamps if they fail I passed by the veiled woman as I walked toward a place in the ring in which the flame was waning dim and I whispered to her the same question I whispered to Margrave she looked slowly around and answered so is it before the invisible make themselves visible did I not bid him for bear her head again drooped on her breast and her watch was again fixed on the fire I advanced to the circle and stooped to replenish the light where it waned as I did so on my arm which stretched somewhat beyond the line I felt a shock like that of electricity the arm fell to my side numbed and nervous and from my hand dropped but within the ring the vessel that contained the fluid recovering my surprise or my stun hastily with the other hand I caught up the vessel but some of the scanty liquid was already spilled on the sword and I saw with a thrill of dismay that contrasted indeed the tranquil indifference with which I had first undertaken my charge how small a supply was now left I went back to Margrave and told him of the shock and of its consequence in the waste of the liquid beware, said he that not a motion of the arm not an inch of the foot past the verge of the ring and if the fluid be thus unhappily stinted reserve all that is left for the protecting circle and the twelve outer lamps see how the grand work advances how the hues in the cauldron are glowing blood red through the film on the surface and now four hours of the six were gone my arm had gradually recovered its strength neither the ring nor the lamps had again required replenishing perhaps their light was exhausted less quickly as it was no longer to be exposed to the rays of the intense Australian moon clouds had gathered over the sky and though the moon gleamed at times in the gaps that they left in blue air her beam was more hazy and dulled the locusts no longer were heard in the grass nor the howl of the dogs in the forest out of the circle the stillness was profound and about this time I saw distinctly in the distance a vast eye it drew nearer and nearer seeming to move from the ground at the height of some lofty giant its gaze riveted mine my blood curdled in the blaze from its angry ball and now as it advanced larger and larger other eyes as if of giants in its train grew out from the space in its rear numbers on numbers like the spearheads of some eastern army seen afar by pale waters of battlements doomed to the dust my voice long refused an utterance to my awe but at length it burst forth shrill and loud look look those terrible eyes legions on legions and hark that tramp of numberless feet they are not seen but the hollows of earth echo the sound of their march margrave more than ever intent on the cauldron in which from time to time he kept dropping powders or essences drawn forth from his coffer looked up defiantly fiercely ye come he said in a low mutter his once mighty voice sounding hollow and laboring but fearless and firm ye come not to conquer vain rebels ye whose dark chief I struck down at my feet in the tomb where my spell had raised up the ghost of your first human master the cauldron earth and air have their armies still faithful to me but still I remember the war song that summons them up to confront you aisha aisha recall the wild trove that we pledged among the roses recall the dread bond by which we united our sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen though my scepter is broken my diademed ref from my brows the failed woman rose at this adoration her veil now was withdrawn and the blaze of the fire between margrave and herself flushed as with the rosy bloom of youth the grand beauty of her softened face it was seen detached as it were from her dark mantled form seen through the mist of the vapors which rose from the cauldron framing it round like the clouds that are yieldingly pierced by the light of the evening star through the haze of the vapor of her voice more musical more plaintive than I'd heard it before but far softer more tender still in her foreign tongue the words unknown to me and yet their sense perhaps made intelligible by the love which has one common language and one common look to all who have loved the love unmistakably heard in the loving tone a moment or so more and she'd come round from the opposite side of the firepile and bending over margrave's upturned brow kissed it quietly solemnly and then her countenance grew fierce her crest rose erect it was the lioness protecting her young she stretched forth her arm from the black mantle a thwart the pale front that now again bent over the cauldron stretched it toward the haunted space beyond in the gesture of one whose right hand has the sway of the scepter and then her voice stole on the air in the music of a chant not loud yet far reaching so thrilling so sweet and yet so solemn that I could at once comprehend how legend united of old the spell of enchantment with the power of song all that I recalled of the effects which in the former time margrave's strange chants had produced on the ear that they ravished and the thoughts they confused was but as the wild bird's imitative carol compared to the depth and the art and the soul of the singer whose voice seemed endowed with a charm to enthrall all the tribes of creation though the language it used for that charm might to them as to me be unknown as the song ceased I heard from behind sounds like those I had heard in the spaces before me the tramp of invisible feet the whir of invisible wings as if armies were marching to aid against armies in march to destroy look not in front nor around said Aisha look like him on the cauldron below the circle and the lamps are yet bright I will tell you when the light again fails I dropped my eyes on the cauldron see whispered margrave the sparkles at last begin to arise and the rose hues to deepen signs that we are near the last process nine the fifth hour had passed away when Aisha said to me law the circle is fading the lamps grew dim look now without fear on the space beyond the eyes that appalled they are again lost in air as lightnings that fleet back into cloud I looked up and the specters had vanished the sky was tinged with sulfurous hues the red and the black intermixed I replenished the lamps and the ring in front thriftfully heedfully but when I came to the sixth lamp a vessel that fed them was left in a vague dismay I now looked round the half of the wide circle in the rear of the two bended figures intent on the cauldron all along that disc the light was already broken here and there flickering up here and there dying down the six lamps in that half of the circle still twinkled but faintly as stars shrinking fast from the dawn of day but it was not the fading shine in that half of the magical ring which daunted my eye and quickened with terror the pulse of my heart the bushland beyond was on fire from the background of the forest rose the flame and the smoke the smoke there still half smothering the flame but along the width of the grasses and herbage between the verge of the forest and the bed of the water creek just below the raised platform from which I beheld the dread conflagration the fire was advancing wave upon wave clear and red against the columns of rock behind as the rush of a flood through the mists of some out-crowned with lightnings roused from my stun at the first sight of a danger not foreseen by the mind I had steeled against far rarer portents of nature I cared no more for the lamps in the circle hurrying back to Aisha exclaimed the phantoms have gone from the spaces in front but what incantation or spell can arrest the red march of the foe speeding on in the rear while we gazed on the cauldron of life behind us unheeded behold the destroyer Aisha looked and made no reply but as by involuntary instinct bowed her majestic head then rearing it erect placed herself yet more immediately before the wasted form of the young magician he still bending over the cauldron and hearing me not in the absorption and hope of his watch placed herself before him as the bird whose first care is her fledgling as we too there stood fronting the deluge of fire we heard margrave behind us murmuring low see the bubbles of light how they sparkle and dance I shall live I shall live and his words scarcely died in our ears before crash upon crash came the fall of the age long trees in the forest and nearer all near us through the blazing grasses the hiss of the serpents the scream of the birds and the bellow and tramp of the herds plunging wild through the billowy red of their pastures Aisha now wound her arms around margrave and wrenched him reluctant and struggling from his watch over the seething cauldron in rebuke of his angry exclamations she pointed to the march of the fire spoke in sorrowful tones a few words in her own language and then appealing to me in English said I tell him that here the spirits who oppose us have summoned the foe that is deaf to my voice and exclaimed margrave no longer with gasp and effort but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the flegethon burning below and this witch whom I trusted is a vile slave and imposter more desiring my death than my life she thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake her that in death I should die in her arms sorcerous avant art thou useless and powerless now when I need the most go unfuneral pyre what to me is the world my world is my life thou knowest that my last hope is here that all the strength left me this night will die down like the lamps in the circle unless the elixir restore it bold friend spurn that sorcerous away hours yet air those flames can assail us a few minutes more and life to your lilyon thus having said margrave turned from us and cast into the cauldron the last essence yet left in his empty coffer Aisha silently drew her black veil over her face and turned with the being she loved from the terror he scorned to share in the hope that he cherished thus left alone with my reason disenthralled disenchanted I surveyed more calmly the extent of the actual peril with which we were threatened and the peril seemed less so surveyed it is true all the bushland behind almost up to the bed of the creek was on fire but the grasses through which the flame spread so rapidly ceased at the opposite marge of the creek watery pools were still at intervals left in the bed of the creek shining tremulous like waves of fire in the glare reflected from the burning land and even where the water failed the stony course of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the conflagration thus unless the wind, now still, should rise and waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage immediately around us we were saved from the fire and our work might yet be achieved I whispered to Aisha the conclusion to which I came thinkest thou she answered without raising her mournful head that the agencies of nature are the movements of chance the spirits I invoke to his aid are linked with the hosts that assail a mightier than I am has doomed him scarcely had she uttered these words before Margrave explained behold how the rose of the alchemist dream enlarges its blooms from the folds of its petals I shall live I shall live I looked and the liquid which glowed in the cauldron had now taken a splendor that mocked all comparisons borrowed from the luster of gems in its prevalent color it had indeed the dazzle and flash of the ruby but out from the mass of the molten red broke coruscations of all prismal hues shooting, shifting in a play that made the wavelets themselves seem living things sensible of their joy no longer was there scum or film upon the surface only ever in a non a light rosy vapor floating up and quick lost in the haggard heavy sulfurous air hot with the conflagration rushing toward us from behind and these coruscations formed on the surface of the molten ruby literally the shape of a rose its leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald and diamond and sapphire even while gazing on this animated liquid luster a buoyant delight seemed infused into my senses all terrors conceived before were annulled the phantoms whose armies had filled the wide spaces in front were forgotten the crash of the forest behind was unheard in the reflection of that glory margraves one cheek seemed already restored to the radiance at war when I saw it first in the framework of blooms as I gazed thus enchanted a cold hand touched my own hush whispered ayesha from the black veil against which the rays of the cauldron fell blunt and absorbed into dark and behind us the light of the circle is extinct but there we are guarded from all save the brutal and soulless destroyers but before but before see two of the lamps have died out see the blank of the gap in the ring guard that breach there the demons will enter not a drop is there left in this vessel by which to replenish the lamps on the ring advance then thou hast still the light of the soul and the demons may recoil before a soul that is dauntless and guiltless if not three are lost as it is one is doomed thus adjured silently and voluntarily I passed from the veiled woman's side over the seer lines on the turf which had been traced by the triangles of light long since extinguished and toward the verge of the circle as I advanced overhead rushed a dark cloud of wings birds dislodged from the forest on fire and screaming in dissonant terror as they flew toward the farther most mountains close by my feet hissed and glided the snakes driven forth from their blazing coverts and glancing through the ring unscared by its waning lamps all undulating by me bright eyed and hissy all made innocuous by fear even the terrible death adder which I trampled on as I halted at the verge of the circle did not turn to bite but crept harmless away I halted at the gap between the two dead lamps and bowed my head to look again into the crystal vessel were there indeed no lingering drops yet left if but to recruit the lamps for some priceless minutes more as I thus stood right into the gap between the two dead lamps strode a gigantic foot all the rest of the form was unseen only as volume after volume of smoke poured on from the burning land behind it seemed as if one great column of vapor eddying round settled itself aloft from the circle and that out from that column strode the giant foot and as strode the foot so with it came like the sound of its tread a roll of muttered thunder I recoiled with a cry that rang loud through the lowered air courage said the voice of Aisha trembling soul yield not an inch to the demon at the charm the wonderful charm in the tone of the veiled woman's voice my will seemed to take a force more sublime than its own I folded my arms on my breast and stood as if rooted to the spot confronting the column of smoke the stride of the giant foot and the foot halted mute again in the momentary hush of that suspense I heard a voice it was margraves the last hour expires the work is accomplished come, come aid me to take the cauldron from the fire and quick or a drop may be wasted in vapor the elixir of life from the cauldron at that cry I receded and the foot advanced and at that moment suddenly unawares from behind I was stricken down over me as I lay swept a whirlwind of trampling hoofs and glancing horns the herds in their flight from the burning pastures had rushed over the bed of the water-course scaled the slopes of the banks snorting and bellowing mountains one cry alone more wild than their own savage blair pierced the reek through which the brute hurricane swept at that cry of wrath and despair I struggled to rise again dashed to earth by the hoofs and the horns but was it the dreamlike deceit of my reeling senses or did I see that giant foot stride past through the close-seried ranks of the maddening herds did I hear through all the huge uproar of animal terror the roll of low thunder which followed the stride of that foot ten when my sense had recovered its shock and my eyes looked dizzily round the charge of the beast had swept by and of all the wild tribes which had invaded the magical circle the only lingerer was the brown death-adder coiled close by the spot where my head had rested beside the extinguished lamps which the hooves had confusedly scattered the fire, arrested by the water-course had consumed the grasses that fed it and there the plains stretched black and desert as the flagrian field of the poet's hell but the fire still raged in the forest beyond white flames soaring up from the trunks of the tallest trees and forming through the sullen dark of the smoke reek innumerable pillars of fire like the halls in the city of fiends gathering myself up I turned my eyes from the terrible pomp of the lurid forest and looked fearfully down on the hoof trampled sword for my two companions I saw the dark image of Aisha still seated still bending as I had seen it last I saw a pale hand feebly grasping the rim of the magical cauldron which lay hurled down from its tripod by the rush of the beasts guards away from the dim fading embers of the scattered woodpire I saw the faint writhings of a frail wasted frame over which the veiled woman was bending I saw as I moved with bruised limbs to the place close by the lips of the dying magician the flesh of the ruby-like essence spilled on the sword and meteor-like sparkling up from the torn tufts of herbage I now reached Margrave's side bending over him as the veiled woman bent and as I sought gently to raise him he turned his face fiercely faltering out touch me not rob me not you share with me never these glorious drops are all mine die all else I will live I will live writhing himself from my pitying arms he plunged his face amidst the beautiful playful flame of the essence as if to lap the elixir with lips scorched away from its intolerable burning suddenly with a low shriek he fell back his face up turned to mine and on that face unmistakably rained death then Aisha tenderly, silently drew the young head to her lap and it vanished from my sight behind her black veil I knelt beside her murmuring some trite words of comfort but she heeded me not rocking herself to and fro as the mother who cradles a child to sleep soon the fast flickering sparkles of the lost elixir died out on the grass and with their last sportive diamond-like tremble of light up in all the suddenness of Australian day rose the sun as a young king fronts his rebels and as there where the bushfires had ravaged all was a desert so there where their fury had not spread all was a garden afar at the foot of the mountains the fugitive herds were grazing the cranes flocking back to the pools renewed the strange grace of their gambles and the great kingfisher whose laugh half in mirth half in mockery leads the choir that welcomed the morn which in Europe is night a lighted bold on the roof of the cavern whose floors were still white with the bones of races extinct before so helpless through instincts so royal through soul rose man but there on the ground where the dazzling elixir had wasted its virtues there the herbage already had a freshness of verger which amid the duller sword rounded was like an oasis of green in a desert and there wild flowers whose chill hues the eye would have scarcely distinguished the day before now glittered forth in blooms of unfamiliar beauty toward that spot were attracted myriads of happy insects whose hum of intense joy was musically loud but the form of the life seeking sorcerer lay rigid and stark blind to the bloom of the wild flowers deaf to the glee of the insects one hand still resting heavily on the rim of the emptied cauldron and the face still hid behind the black veil what the wondrous elixir sought with such hope and well nigh achieved through such dread fleeting back to the earth from which its material was drawn to give bloom indeed but to herbs joy indeed but to insects and now in the flash of the sun slowly wound up the slopes that led to the circle the same barbaric procession which had sunk into the valley under the ray of the moon the armed men came first stalwart and tall their vests brave with crimson and golden lace their weapons gaily gleaming with holiday silver after them the black litter as they came to the place Aisha not raising her head spoke to them in her own eastern tongue a whale was her answer the armed men bounded forward and the bearers left the litter all gathered round the dead form with the face concealed under the black veil all knelt and all wept far in the distance at the foot of the blue mountains one of the savage natives had risen up as if from the earth they stood motionless leaning on their clubs and spears and looking toward the spot on which we were strangely thus brought into the landscape as if they too the wild dwellers on the verge which humanity guards from the brute were among the mourners for the mysterious child of mysterious nature and still in the herbage hummed the small insects and still from the cavern laughed the great kingfisher I said to Aisha farewell your love mourns the dead mine calls me to the living you are now with your own people they may console you say if I can assist there is no consolation for me what mourner can be consoled if the dead die forever nothing for him is left but a grave that grave shall be in the land where the song of Aisha first lulled him to sleep thou assist me thou the wise man of Europe from me ask assistance what road will thou take to thy home there is but one road known to me through the maze of the solitude that which we took to the subland on that road death lurks and awaits thee blind dup could thou think that if the grand secret of life had been won he whose head rests on my lap would have yielded the one petty drop of the essence which had filtered from his store of life but a moment me who so loved and so cherished him me he would have doomed to the pitiless cord of my servant the strangler if my death could have lengthened the hairbread the span of his being but what matters to me his crime or his madness I loved him I loved him she bowed her veiled head lower and lower perhaps under the veil her lips kissed the lips of the dead then she said whisperingly duma the strangler whose word never failed to his master whose prey never slipped from his snare waits thy step on the road to thy home but thy death cannot now profit the dead the beloved and thou hast had pity for him who took but thine aid to design thy destruction his life is lost thine is saved she spoke no more in the tongue that I could interpret she spoke in the language unknown a few murmured words to her swore the attendance then the armed men still weeping rose and made a dumb sign to me to go with them I understood by the sign that Aisha had told them to guard me on my way but she gave no reply to my parting thanks eleven I descended into the valley the armed men followed the path on that side of the water course not reached by the flames through meadows still green or amidst groves still unscathed as a turning in the way brought in front of my sight the place I had left behind I beheld the black litter creeping down the descent with its curtains closed and the veiled woman walking by its side but soon the funeral procession was lost to my eyes and the thoughts that it roused were erased the waves in man's brain are like those of the sea rushing on moving over the wrecks of the vessels that rode on their surface to sink after storm in their deeps one thought cast forth into the future now mastered all in the past was Lillian living still? absorbed in the gloom of that thought hurried on by the goad that my heart in its tortured impatience gave to my footstep I outstripped the slow stride of the armed men a midway between the place I had left and the home which I sped to came far in advance of my guards into the thicket in which the bushmen had started up in my path on the night that Lillian had watched for my coming the earth at my feet was rife with creeping plants and many colored flowers the sky overhead was half hid by motionless pines suddenly whether crawling out from the herbage or dropping down from the trees by my side stood the white robed and skeleton form Ayesha's attendant the strangler I sprang from him shuddering then halted and faced him the hideous creature crept toward me cringing and fawning making signs of humble goodwill and servile obeisance again I recoiled wrathfully loathingly turned my face homeward and fled on I thought I had baffled his chase when just at the mouth of the thicket he dropped from a bow my path close behind me before I could turn some dark muffling substance fell between my sight and the sun and I felt a fierce strain at my throat but the words of Ayesha had warned me with one rapid hand I seized the noose before it could tighten too closely with the other I tore the bandage away from my eyes and wheeling round on the dasterly foe struck him down with one spurn of my foot his hand as he fell fixed its hold on the noose I freed my throat from the knot and sprang from the cops into the broad sunlit plane I saw no more of the armed men or the strangler panting and breathless I paused at last before the fence fragrant with blossoms that divided my home from the solitude the windows of Lillian's room were darkened all within the house seemed still darkened and silenced home with the light and sounds of the jokun today all around it was there yet hope in the universe for me? all to which I had trusted hope had broken down the anchors I had forged for her hold in the beds of the ocean her stay from the drifts of the storm had snapped like the reeds which pierced the side that leans on the barb of their points and confides in the strength of their stems no hope in the baffled resources of recognized knowledge no hope in the daring adventures of mind into regions unknown vain alike the calm lore of the practice physician and the magical arts of the fated enchanter I had fled from the commonplace teachings of nature to explore in her shadow land marvels at variance with reason made brave by the grandeur of love I had opposed without quailing the stride of the demon and my hope when fruition seemed nearest had been trodden into dust by the hooves of the beast and yet all the while I had scorned as a dream more wild than the world of a sorcerer the hope that the old man and the child the wise and the ignorant took from their souls as inborn man and fiend had alike failed a mind not ignoble, not skillless not abjectly craven alike failed a heart not feeble and selfish not dead to the hero's devotion willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something more dear than an animal's life for itself what remained what remained for man's hope man's mind and man's heart thus exhausting their all with no other result but despair what remained but the mystery of mysteries so clear to the sunrise of childhood the sunset of age only dimmed by the clouds which collect round the noon of our manhood where yet was hope found in the soul in its everyday impulse to supplicate comfort and light from the giver of soul wherever the heart is afflicted the mind is obscured then the words of Ayesha rushed over me what the mourner can be consoled if the dead die forever through every pulse of my frame throbbed that dread question all nature around seemed to murmur it and suddenly as by a flash from heaven the grand truth in Faber's grand reasoning shone on me and lighted up all within and without man alone of all earthly creatures asks can the dead die forever and the instinct that urges the question is God's answer to man no instinct is given in vain and born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the soul from the seen to the unseen from time to eternity from the torrent that foams toward the ocean of death to the source of its stream far aloft from the ocean know thyself said the Pythian of old that precept descended from heaven know thyself is that maxim wise if so know thysoul but never yet did man come to the thorough conviction of soul but what he acknowledged the sovereign necessity of prayer in my awe in my rapture all my thought seemed enlarged and loomed and exalted I prayed all my soul seemed one prayer all my past with its pride and presumption and folly grew distinct as the form of a penitent kneeling for pardon before setting forth on the pilgrimage vowed to a shrine and sure now the birth of a soul first revealed to myself that the dead do not die forever my human love soared beyond its brief trial of terror and sorrow daring not to ask from heaven's wisdom that Lillian for my sake might not yet pass away from the earth I prayed that my soul might be fitted to bear with submission whatever my maker might ordain and if surviving her without whom no beam from yarn material could ever warm into joy a morrow in human life so to guide my steps that they might rejoin her at last and in rejoining regain forever how trivial now became the weird riddle that a little while before had been clothed in so solemn an awe what mattered it to the vast interests involved in the clear recognition of soul and hereafter whether or not my bodily sense for a moment obscured the face of the nature I should one day behold as a spirit doubtless the sights and the sounds which had haunted the last gloomy night the calm reason of favour would strip of their magical seemings the eyes in the space and the foot in the circle might be those of no terrible demons but of the wilds savage children whom I had seen halting curious and mute in the light of the morning the tremor of the ground if not as heretofore explicable by the illusory impression of my own treacherous senses might be but the natural effect of elements struggling yet under a soil unmistakably charred by volcanoes the luminous atoms dissolved in the cauldron might as little be fraught with a vital elixir as are the splendors of naphtha or phosphor as it was the weird rite had no magic result the magician was not rent limb from limb by the fiends by causes as natural as ever extinguished life's spark in the frail lamp of clay he had died out of sight under the black veil what mattered henceforth to faith in its far grander questions and answers whether reason in favour or fancy in me supplied the more probable guess at a hieroglyph which if construed a rite was but a word of small mark a simple language of nature if all the arts of enchantment recorded by fable were attested by facts which sages were forced to acknowledge sages would sooner or later find some cause for such portents not supernatural but what sage without cause supernatural both without and within him can guess at the wonders he views in the growth of a blade of grass or the tints on an insects wing whatever art man can achieve in his progress through time man's reason in time can suffice to explain but the wonders of God these belong to the infinite and these oh immortal will but develop new wonder on wonder thou thy sight be a spirits and thy leisure to track and to solve an eternity as I raised my face from my clasped hands my eyes fell full upon a form standing in the open doorway there where on the night in which Lillian's long struggle for reason in life had begun the luminous shadow had been beheld in the doubtful light of a dying moon and a yet hazy dawn there on the threshold gathering round her bright locks the ariel of the glorious sun stood Amy the blessed child and as I gazed drawing nearer and nearer to the silenced house and that image of peace on its threshold I felt that hope met me at the door hope in the child's steadfast eyes hope in the child's welcoming smile I was at watch for you whispered Amy all is well she lives still she lives thank God she lives she will recover said another voice as my head sunk on Faber's shoulder for some hours in the night her sleep was disturbed convulsed I feared then the worst suddenly just before the dawn she called out aloud still in sleep the cold and dark shadow was passed away from me and from Alan passed away from us both forever and from that moment the fever left her the breathing became soft the pulse steady gradually back to her cheek the crisis has passed nature's benign disposer has permitted nature to restore your life's gentle partner heart to heart, mind to mind and soul to soul I cried in my solemn joy above as below soul to soul then at a sign from Faber the child took me by the hand and led me up the stairs into Lillian's room again those dear arms closed around me in wife-like and holy love and those true lips kissed away my tears even as now at the distance of years from that happy morn while I write the last words of this strange story the same faithful arms close around me the same tender lips kiss away my tears end of section 7