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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Prince Zaleski + +Author: M.P. Shiel + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10709] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCE ZALESKI *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Wilelmina Malli re, Sjaani and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + +<table align="center" width="80%"><tr><td> +<img src="images/tp.jpg" alt="title" /><br /> +M. P. Shiel = Matthew Phipps Shiel +</td> + <td> + <h3 align="center">TO</h3> + <h3 align="center">MY DEAR MOTHER</h3> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + <h2>CONTENTS</h2> + <p><strong><a href="#race">The Race of Orven</a></strong></p> + <p><strong><a href="#stone">The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks</a></strong></p> + <p><strong><a href="#thess">The S.S.</a></strong></p> + +</td> +</tr> +<tr><td colspan="2"> +<br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /> + +<a name="race"></a><h2>THE RACE OF ORVEN</h2> + +<p>Never without grief and pain could I remember the fate of Prince +Zaleski—victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which the +fulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from his +native land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men! Having renounced +the world, over which, lurid and inscrutable as a falling star, he had +passed, the world quickly ceased to wonder at him; and even I, to whom, +more than to another, the workings of that just and passionate mind had +been revealed, half forgot him in the rush of things.</p> + +<p>But during the time that what was called the 'Pharanx labyrinth' was +exercising many of the heaviest brains in the land, my thought turned +repeatedly to him; and even when the affair had passed from the general +attention, a bright day in Spring, combined perhaps with a latent +mistrust of the <i>dénoûment</i> of that dark plot, drew me to his place of +hermitage.</p> + +<p>I reached the gloomy abode of my friend as the sun set. It was a vast +palace of the older world standing lonely in the midst of woodland, and +approached by a sombre avenue of poplars and cypresses, through which +the sunlight hardly pierced. Up this I passed, and seeking out the +deserted stables (which I found all too dilapidated to afford shelter) +finally put up my <i>calèche</i> in the ruined sacristy of an old Dominican +chapel, and turned my mare loose to browse for the night on a paddock +behind the domain.</p> + +<p>As I pushed back the open front door and entered the mansion, I could +not but wonder at the saturnine fancy that had led this wayward man to +select a brooding-place so desolate for the passage of his days. I +regarded it as a vast tomb of Mausolus in which lay deep sepulchred how +much genius, culture, brilliancy, power! The hall was constructed in +the manner of a Roman <i>atrium</i>, and from the oblong pool of turgid +water in the centre a troop of fat and otiose rats fled weakly +squealing at my approach. I mounted by broken marble steps to the +corridors running round the open space, and thence pursued my way +through a mazeland of apartments—suite upon suite—along many a length +of passage, up and down many stairs. Dust-clouds rose from the +uncarpeted floors and choked me; incontinent Echo coughed answering +<i>ricochets</i> to my footsteps in the gathering darkness, and added +emphasis to the funereal gloom of the dwelling. Nowhere was there a +vestige of furniture—nowhere a trace of human life.</p> + +<p>After a long interval I came, in a remote tower of the building and +near its utmost summit, to a richly-carpeted passage, from the ceiling +of which three mosaic lamps shed dim violet, scarlet and pale-rose +lights around. At the end I perceived two figures standing as if in +silent guard on each side of a door tapestried with the python's skin. +One was a post-replica in Parian marble of the nude Aphrodite of +Cnidus; in the other I recognised the gigantic form of the negro Ham, +the prince's only attendant, whose fierce, and glistening, and ebon +visage broadened into a grin of intelligence as I came nearer. Nodding +to him, I pushed without ceremony into Zaleski's apartment.</p> + +<p>The room was not a large one, but lofty. Even in the semi-darkness of +the very faint greenish lustre radiated from an open censerlike +<i>lampas</i> of fretted gold in the centre of the domed encausted roof, a +certain incongruity of barbaric gorgeousness in the furnishing filled +me with amazement. The air was heavy with the scented odour of this +light, and the fumes of the narcotic <i>cannabis sativa</i>—the base of the +<i>bhang</i> of the Mohammedans—in which I knew it to be the habit of my +friend to assuage himself. The hangings were of wine-coloured velvet, +heavy, gold-fringed and embroidered at Nurshedabad. All the world knew +Prince Zaleski to be a consummate <i>cognoscente</i>—a profound amateur—as +well as a savant and a thinker; but I was, nevertheless, astounded at +the mere multitudinousness of the curios he had contrived to crowd into +the space around him. Side by side rested a palaeolithic implement, a +Chinese 'wise man,' a Gnostic gem, an amphora of Graeco-Etruscan work. +The general effect was a <i>bizarrerie</i> of half-weird sheen and gloom. +Flemish sepulchral brasses companied strangely with runic tablets, +miniature paintings, a winged bull, Tamil scriptures on lacquered +leaves of the talipot, mediaeval reliquaries richly gemmed, Brahmin +gods. One whole side of the room was occupied by an organ whose thunder +in that circumscribed place must have set all these relics of dead +epochs clashing and jingling in fantastic dances. As I entered, the +vaporous atmosphere was palpitating to the low, liquid tinkling of an +invisible musical box. The prince reclined on a couch from which a +draping of cloth-of-silver rolled torrent over the floor. Beside him, +stretched in its open sarcophagus which rested on three brazen +trestles, lay the mummy of an ancient Memphian, from the upper part of +which the brown cerements had rotted or been rent, leaving the +hideousness of the naked, grinning countenance exposed to view.</p> + +<p>Discarding his gemmed chibouque and an old vellum reprint of Anacreon, +Zaleski rose hastily and greeted me with warmth, muttering at the same +time some commonplace about his 'pleasure' and the 'unexpectedness' of +my visit. He then gave orders to Ham to prepare me a bed in one of the +adjoining chambers. We passed the greater part of the night in a +delightful stream of that somnolent and half-mystic talk which Prince +Zaleski alone could initiate and sustain, during which he repeatedly +pressed on me a concoction of Indian hemp resembling <i>hashish</i>, +prepared by his own hands, and quite innocuous. It was after a simple +breakfast the next morning that I entered on the subject which was +partly the occasion of my visit. He lay back on his couch, volumed in a +Turkish <i>beneesh</i>, and listened to me, a little wearily perhaps at +first, with woven fingers, and the pale inverted eyes of old anchorites +and astrologers, the moony greenish light falling on his always wan +features.</p> + +<p>'You knew Lord Pharanx?' I asked.</p> + +<p>'I have met him in "the world." His son Lord Randolph, too, I saw once +at Court at Peterhof, and once again at the Winter Palace of the Tsar. +I noticed in their great stature, shaggy heads of hair, ears of a very +peculiar conformation, and a certain aggressiveness of demeanour—a +strong likeness between father and son.'</p> + +<p>I had brought with me a bundle of old newspapers, and comparing these +as I went on, I proceeded to lay the incidents before him.</p> + +<p>'The father,' I said, 'held, as you know, high office in a late +Administration, and was one of our big luminaries in politics; he has +also been President of the Council of several learned societies, and +author of a book on Modern Ethics. His son was rapidly rising to +eminence in the <i>corps diplomatique</i>, and lately (though, strictly +speaking, <i>unebenbürtig</i>) contracted an affiance with the Prinzessin +Charlotte Mariana Natalia of Morgen-üppigen, a lady with a strain of +indubitable Hohenzollern blood in her royal veins. The Orven family is +a very old and distinguished one, though—especially in modern +days—far from wealthy. However, some little time after Randolph had +become engaged to this royal lady, the father insured his life for +immense sums in various offices both in England and America, and the +reproach of poverty is now swept from the race. Six months ago, almost +simultaneously, both father and son resigned their various positions +<i>en bloc</i>. But all this, of course, I am telling you on the assumption +that you have not already read it in the papers.'</p> + +<p>'A modern newspaper,' he said, 'being what it mostly is, is the one +thing insupportable to me at present. Believe me, I never see one.'</p> + +<p>'Well, then, Lord Pharanx, as I said, threw up his posts in the fulness +of his vigour, and retired to one of his country seats. A good many +years ago, he and Randolph had a terrible row over some trifle, and, +with the implacability that distinguishes their race, had not since +exchanged a word. But some little time after the retirement of the +father, a message was despatched by him to the son, who was then in +India. Considered as the first step in the <i>rapprochement</i> of this +proud and selfish pair of beings, it was an altogether remarkable +message, and was subsequently deposed to in evidence by a telegraph +official; it ran:</p> + +<p>'"<i>Return. The beginning of the end is come.</i>" Whereupon Randolph did +return, and in three months from the date of his landing in England, +Lord Pharanx was dead.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Murdered</i>?'</p> + +<p>A certain something in the tone in which this word was uttered by +Zaleski puzzled me. It left me uncertain whether he had addressed to me +an exclamation of conviction, or a simple question. I must have looked +this feeling, for he said at once:</p> + +<p>'I could easily, from your manner, surmise as much, you know. Perhaps I +might even have foretold it, years ago.'</p> + +<p>'Foretold—what? Not the murder of Lord Pharanx?'</p> + +<p>'Something of that kind,' he answered with a smile; 'but proceed—tell +me all the facts you know.'</p> + +<p>Word-mysteries of this sort fell frequent from the lips of the prince. +I continued the narrative.</p> + +<p>'The two, then, met, and were reconciled. But it was a reconciliation +without cordiality, without affection—a shaking of hands across a +barrier of brass; and even this hand-shaking was a strictly +metaphorical one, for they do not seem ever to have got beyond the +interchange of a frigid bow. The opportunities, however, for +observation were few. Soon after Randolph's arrival at Orven Hall, his +father entered on a life of the most absolute seclusion. The mansion is +an old three-storied one, the top floor consisting for the most part of +sleeping-rooms, the first of a library, drawing-room, and so on, and +the ground-floor, in addition to the dining and other ordinary rooms, +of another small library, looking out (at the side of the house) on a +low balcony, which, in turn, looks on a lawn dotted with flower-beds. +It was this smaller library on the ground-floor that was now divested +of its books, and converted into a bedroom for the earl. Hither he +migrated, and here he lived, scarcely ever leaving it. Randolph, on his +part, moved to a room on the first floor immediately above this. Some +of the retainers of the family were dismissed, and on the remaining few +fell a hush of expectancy, a sense of wonder, as to what these things +boded. A great enforced quiet pervaded the building, the least undue +noise in any part being sure to be followed by the angry voice of the +master demanding the cause. Once, as the servants were supping in the +kitchen on the side of the house most remote from that which he +occupied, Lord Pharanx, slippered and in dressing-gown, appeared at the +doorway, purple with rage, threatening to pack the whole company of +them out of doors if they did not moderate the clatter of their knives +and forks. He had always been regarded with fear in his own household, +and the very sound of his voice now became a terror. His food was taken +to him in the room he had made his habitation, and it was remarked +that, though simple before in his gustatory tastes, he now—possibly +owing to the sedentary life he led—became fastidious, insisting on +<i>recherché</i> bits. I mention all these details to you—as I shall +mention others—not because they have the least connection with the +tragedy as it subsequently occurred, but merely because I know them, +and you have requested me to state all I know.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' he answered, with a suspicion of <i>ennui</i>, 'you are right. I may +as well hear the whole—if I must hear a part.'</p> + +<p>'Meanwhile, Randolph appears to have visited the earl at least once a +day. In such retirement did he, too, live that many of his friends +still supposed him to be in India. There was only one respect in which +he broke through this privacy. You know, of course, that the Orvens +are, and, I believe, always have been, noted as the most obstinate, the +most crabbed of Conservatives in politics. Even among the +past-enamoured families of England, they stand out conspicuously in +this respect. Is it credible to you, then, that Randolph should offer +himself to the Radical Association of the Borough of Orven as a +candidate for the next election in opposition to the sitting member? It +is on record, too, that he spoke at three public meetings—reported in +local papers—at which he avowed his political conversion; afterwards +laid the foundation-stone of a new Baptist chapel; presided at a +Methodist tea-meeting; and taking an abnormal interest in the debased +condition of the labourers in the villages round, fitted up as a +class-room an apartment on the top floor at Orven Hall, and gathered +round him on two evenings in every week a class of yokels, whom he +proceeded to cram with demonstrations in elementary mechanics.'</p> + +<p>'Mechanics!' cried Zaleski, starting upright for a moment, 'mechanics +to agricultural labourers! Why not elementary chemistry? Why not +elementary botany? <i>Why</i> mechanics?'</p> + +<p>This was the first evidence of interest he had shown in the story. I +was pleased, but answered:</p> + +<p>'The point is unimportant; and there really is no accounting for the +vagaries of such a man. He wished, I imagine, to give some idea to the +young illiterates of the simple laws of motion and force. But now I +come to a new character in the drama—the chief character of all. One +day a woman presented herself at Orven Hall and demanded to see its +owner. She spoke English with a strong French accent. Though +approaching middle life she was still beautiful, having wild black +eyes, and creamy pale face. Her dress was tawdry, cheap, and loud, +showing signs of wear; her hair was unkempt; her manners were not the +manners of a lady. A certain vehemence, exasperation, unrepose +distinguished all she said and did. The footman refused her admission; +Lord Pharanx, he said, was invisible. She persisted violently, pushed +past him, and had to be forcibly ejected; during all which the voice of +the master was heard roaring from the passage red-eyed remonstrance at +the unusual noise. She went away gesticulating wildly, and vowing +vengeance on Lord Pharanx and all the world. It was afterwards found +that she had taken up her abode in one of the neighbouring hamlets, +called Lee.</p> + +<p>'This person, who gave the name of Maude Cibras, subsequently called at +the Hall three times in succession, and was each time refused +admittance. It was now, however, thought advisable to inform Randolph +of her visits. He said she might be permitted to see him, if she +returned. This she did on the next day, and had a long interview in +private with him. Her voice was heard raised as if in angry protest by +one Hester Dyett, a servant of the house, while Randolph in low tones +seemed to try to soothe her. The conversation was in French, and no +word could be made out. She passed out at length, tossing her head +jauntily, and smiling a vulgar triumph at the footman who had before +opposed her ingress. She was never known to seek admission to the house +again.</p> + +<p>'But her connection with its inmates did not cease. The same Hester +asserts that one night, coming home late through the park, she saw two +persons conversing on a bench beneath the trees, crept behind some +bushes, and discovered that they were the strange woman and Randolph. +The same servant bears evidence to tracking them to other +meeting-places, and to finding in the letter-bag letters addressed to +Maude Cibras in Randolph's hand-writing. One of these was actually +unearthed later on. Indeed, so engrossing did the intercourse become, +that it seems even to have interfered with the outburst of radical zeal +in the new political convert. The <i>rendezvous</i>—always held under cover +of darkness, but naked and open to the eye of the watchful +Hester—sometimes clashed with the science lectures, when these latter +would be put off, so that they became gradually fewer, and then almost +ceased.'</p> + +<p>'Your narrative becomes unexpectedly interesting,' said Zaleski; 'but +this unearthed letter of Randolph's—what was in it?'</p> + +<p>I read as follows:</p> + +<p>'"Dear Mdlle. Cibras,—I am exerting my utmost influence for you with +my father. But he shows no signs of coming round as yet. If I could +only induce him to see you! But he is, as you know, a person of +unrelenting will, and meanwhile you must confide in my loyal efforts on +your behalf. At the same time, I admit that the situation is a +precarious one: you are, I am sure, well provided for in the present +will of Lord Pharanx, but he is on the point—within, say, three or +four days—of making another; and exasperated as he is at your +appearance in England, I know there is no chance of your receiving a +<i>centime</i> under the new will. Before then, however, we must hope that +something favourable to you may happen; and in the meantime, let me +implore you not to let your only too just resentment pass beyond the +bounds of reason.</p> + +<p>"Sincerely yours,</p> + +<p>"RANDOLPH."'</p> + +<p>'I like the letter!' cried Zaleski. 'You notice the tone of manly +candour. But the <i>facts</i>—were they true? <i>Did</i> the earl make a new +will in the time specified?'</p> + +<p>'No,—but that may have been because his death intervened.'</p> + +<p>'And in the old will, <i>was</i> Mdlle. Cibras provided for?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,—that at least was correct.'</p> + +<p>A shadow of pain passed over his face.</p> + +<p>'And now,' I went on, 'I come to the closing scene, in which one of +England's foremost men perished by the act of an obscure assassin. The +letter I have read was written to Maude Cibras on the 5th of January. +The next thing that happens is on the 6th, when Lord Pharanx left his +room for another during the whole day, and a skilled mechanic was +introduced into it for the purpose of effecting some alterations. Asked +by Hester Dyett, as he was leaving the house, what was the nature of +his operations, the man replied that he had been applying a patent +arrangement to the window looking out on the balcony, for the better +protection of the room against burglars, several robberies having +recently been committed in the neighbourhood. The sudden death of this +man, however, before the occurrence of the tragedy, prevented his +evidence being heard. On the next day—the 7th—Hester, entering the +room with Lord Pharanx's dinner, fancies, though she cannot tell why +(inasmuch as his back is towards her, he sitting in an arm-chair by the +fire), that Lord Pharanx has been "drinking heavily."</p> + +<p>'On the 8th a singular thing befell. The earl was at last induced to +see Maude Cibras, and during the morning of that day, with his own +hand, wrote a note informing her of his decision, Randolph handing the +note to a messenger. That note also has been made public. It reads as +follows:</p> + +<p>'"Maude Cibras.—You may come here to-night after dark. Walk to the +south side of the house, come up the steps to the balcony, and pass in +through the open window to my room. Remember, however, that you have +nothing to expect from me, and that from to-night I blot you eternally +from my mind: but I will hear your story, which I know beforehand to be +false. Destroy this note. PHARANX."'</p> + +<p>As I progressed with my tale, I came to notice that over the +countenance of Prince Zaleski there grew little by little a singular +fixed aspect. His small, keen features distorted themselves into an +expression of what I can only describe as an abnormal <i>inquisitiveness</i> +—an inquisitiveness most impatient, arrogant, in its intensity. +His pupils, contracted each to a dot, became the central <i>puncta</i> +of two rings of fiery light; his little sharp teeth seemed to +gnash. Once before I had seen him look thus greedily, when, grasping a +Troglodyte tablet covered with half-effaced hieroglyphics—his fingers +livid with the fixity of his grip—he bent on it that strenuous +inquisition, that ardent questioning gaze, till, by a species of +mesmeric dominancy, he seemed to wrench from it the arcanum it hid from +other eyes; then he lay back, pale and faint from the too arduous +victory.</p> + +<p>When I had read Lord Pharanx's letter, he took the paper eagerly from +my hand, and ran his eyes over the passage.</p> + +<p>'Tell me—the end,' he said.</p> + +<p>'Maude Cibras,' I went on, 'thus invited to a meeting with the earl, +failed to make her appearance at the appointed time. It happened that +she had left her lodgings in the village early that very morning, and, +for some purpose or other, had travelled to the town of Bath. Randolph, +too, went away the same day in the opposite direction to Plymouth. He +returned on the following morning, the 9th; soon after walked over to +Lee; and entered into conversation with the keeper of the inn where +Cibras lodged; asked if she was at home, and on being told that she had +gone away, asked further if she had taken her luggage with her; was +informed that she had, and had also announced her intention of at once +leaving England. He then walked away in the direction of the Hall. On +this day Hester Dyett noticed that there were many articles of value +scattered about the earl's room, notably a tiara of old Brazilian +brilliants, sometimes worn by the late Lady Pharanx. Randolph—who was +present at the time—further drew her attention to these by telling her +that Lord Pharanx had chosen to bring together in his apartment many of +the family jewels; and she was instructed to tell the other servants of +this fact, in case they should notice any suspicious-looking loafers +about the estate.</p> + +<p>'On the 10th, both father and son remained in their rooms all day, +except when the latter came down to meals; at which times he would lock +his door behind him, and with his own hands take in the earl's food, +giving as his reason that his father was writing a very important +document, and did not wish to be disturbed by the presence of a +servant. During the forenoon, Hester Dyett, hearing loud noises in +Randolph's room, as if furniture was being removed from place to place, +found some pretext for knocking at his door, when he ordered her on no +account to interrupt him again, as he was busy packing his clothes in +view of a journey to London on the next day. The subsequent conduct of +the woman shows that her curiosity must have been excited to the utmost +by the undoubtedly strange spectacle of Randolph packing his own +clothes. During the afternoon a lad from the village was instructed to +collect his companions for a science lecture the same evening at eight +o'clock. And so the eventful day wore on.</p> + +<p>'We arrive now at this hour of eight P.M. on this 10th day of January. +The night is dark and windy; some snow has been falling, but has now +ceased. In an upper room is Randolph engaged in expounding the elements +of dynamics; in the room under that is Hester Dyett—for Hester has +somehow obtained a key that opens the door of Randolph's room, and +takes advantage of his absence upstairs to explore it. Under her is +Lord Pharanx, certainly in bed, probably asleep. Hester, trembling all +over in a fever of fear and excitement, holds a lighted taper in one +hand, which she religiously shades with the other; for the storm is +gusty, and the gusts, tearing through the crevices of the rattling old +casements, toss great flickering shadows on the hangings, which +frighten her to death. She has just time to see that the whole room is +in the wildest confusion, when suddenly a rougher puff blows out the +flame, and she is left in what to her, standing as she was on that +forbidden ground, must have been a horror of darkness. At the same +moment, clear and sharp from right beneath her, a pistol-shot rings out +on her ear. For an instant she stands in stone, incapable of motion. +Then on her dazed senses there supervenes—so she swore—the +consciousness that some object is moving in the room—moving apparently +of its own accord—moving in direct opposition to all the laws of +nature as she knows them. She imagines that she perceives a phantasm—a +strange something—globular-white—looking, as she says, "like a +good-sized ball of cotton"—rise directly from the floor before her, +ascending slowly upward, as if driven aloft by some invisible force. A +sharp shock of the sense of the supernatural deprives her of ordered +reason. Throwing forward her arms, and uttering a shrill scream, she +rushes towards the door. But she never reaches it: midway she falls +prostrate over some object, and knows no more; and when, an hour later, +she is borne out of the room in the arms of Randolph himself, the blood +is dripping from a fracture of her right tibia.</p> + +<p>'Meantime, in the upper chamber the pistol-shot and the scream of the +woman have been heard. All eyes turn to Randolph. He stands in the +shadow of the mechanical contrivance on which he has been illustrating +his points; leans for support on it. He essays to speak, the muscles of +his face work, but no sound comes. Only after a time is he able to +gasp: "Did you hear something—from below?" They answer "yes" in +chorus; then one of the lads takes a lighted candle, and together they +troop out, Randolph behind them. A terrified servant rushes up with the +news that something dreadful has happened in the house. They proceed +for some distance, but there is an open window on the stairs, and the +light is blown out. They have to wait some minutes till another is +obtained, and then the procession moves forward once more. Arrived at +Lord Pharanx's door, and finding it locked, a lantern is procured, and +Randolph leads them through the house and out on the lawn. But having +nearly reached the balcony, a lad observes a track of small +woman's-feet in the snow; a halt is called, and then Randolph points +out another track of feet, half obliterated by the snow, extending from +a coppice close by up to the balcony, and forming an angle with the +first track. These latter are great big feet, made by ponderous +labourers' boots. He holds the lantern over the flower-beds, and shows +how they have been trampled down. Some one finds a common scarf, such +as workmen wear; and a ring and a locket, dropped by the burglars in +their flight, are also found by Randolph half buried in the snow. And +now the foremost reach the window. Randolph, from behind, calls to them +to enter. They cry back that they cannot, the window being closed. At +this reply he seems to be overcome by surprise, by terror. Some one +hears him murmur the words, "My God, what can have happened now?" His +horror is increased when one of the lads bears to him a revolting +trophy, which has been found just outside the window; it is the front +phalanges of three fingers of a human hand. Again he utters the +agonised moan, "My God!" and then, mastering his agitation, makes for +the window; he finds that the catch of the sash has been roughly +wrenched off, and that the sash can be opened by merely pushing it up: +does so, and enters. The room is in darkness: on the floor under the +window is found the insensible body of the woman Cibras. She is alive, +but has fainted. Her right fingers are closed round the handle of a +large bowie-knife, which is covered with blood; parts of the left are +missing. All the jewelry has been stolen from the room. Lord Pharanx +lies on the bed, stabbed through the bedclothes to the heart. Later on +a bullet is also found imbedded in his brain. I should explain that a +trenchant edge, running along the bottom of the sash, was the obvious +means by which the fingers of Cibras had been cut off. This had been +placed there a few days before by the workman I spoke of. Several +secret springs had been placed on the inner side of the lower +horizontal piece of the window-frame, by pressing any one of which the +sash was lowered; so that no one, ignorant of the secret, could pass +out from within, without resting the hand on one of these springs, and +so bringing down the armed sash suddenly on the underlying hand.</p> + +<p>'There was, of course, a trial. The poor culprit, in mortal terror of +death, shrieked out a confession of the murder just as the jury had +returned from their brief consultation, and before they had time to +pronounce their verdict of "guilty." But she denied shooting Lord +Pharanx, and she denied stealing the jewels; and indeed no pistol and +no jewels were found on her, or anywhere in the room. So that many +points remain mysterious. What part did the burglars play in the +tragedy? Were they in collusion with Cibras? Had the strange behaviour +of at least one of the inmates of Orven Hall no hidden significance? +The wildest guesses were made throughout the country; theories +propounded. But no theory explained <i>all</i> the points. The ferment, +however, has now subsided. To-morrow morning Maude Cibras ends her life +on the gallows.'</p> + +<p>Thus I ended my narrative.</p> + +<p>Without a word Zaleski rose from the couch, and walked to the organ. +Assisted from behind by Ham, who foreknew his master's every whim, he +proceeded to render with infinite feeling an air from the <i>Lakmé</i> of +Delibes; long he sat, dreamily uttering the melody, his head sunken on +his breast. When at last he rose, his great expanse of brow was clear, +and a smile all but solemn in its serenity was on his lips. He walked +up to an ivory <i>escritoire</i>, scribbled a few words on a sheet of paper, +and handed it to the negro with the order to take my trap and drive +with the message in all haste to the nearest telegraph office.</p> + +<p>'That message,' he said, resuming his place on the couch, 'is a last +word on the tragedy, and will, no doubt, produce some modification in +the final stage of its history. And now, Shiel, let us sit together and +confer on this matter. From the manner in which you have expressed +yourself, it is evident that there are points which puzzle you—you do +not get a clean <i>coup d'oeil</i> of the whole regiment of facts, and their +causes, and their consequences, as they occurred. Let us see if out of +that confusion we cannot produce a coherence, a symmetry. A great wrong +is done, and on the society in which it is done is imposed the task of +making it translucent, of seeing it in all its relations, and of +punishing it. But what happens? The society fails to rise to the +occasion; on the whole, it contrives to make the opacity more opaque, +does not see the crime in any human sense; is unable to punish it. Now +this, you will admit, whenever it occurs, is a woful failure: woful I +mean, not very in itself, but very in its significance: and there must +be a precise cause for it. That cause is the lack of something not +merely, or specially, in the investigators of the wrong, but in the +world at large—shall we not boldly call it the lack of culture? Do +not, however, misunderstand me: by the term I mean not so much +attainment in general, as <i>mood</i> in particular. Whether or when such +mood may become universal may be to you a matter of doubt. As for me, I +often think that when the era of civilisation begins—as assuredly it +shall some day begin—when the races of the world cease to be +credulous, ovine mobs and become critical, human nations, then will be +the ushering in of the ten thousand years of a <i>clairvoyant</i> culture. +But nowhere, and at no time during the very few hundreds of years that +man has occupied the earth, has there been one single sign of its +presence. In individuals, yes—in the Greek Plato, and I think in your +English Milton and Bishop Berkeley—but in humanity, never; and hardly +in any individual outside those two nations. The reason, I fancy, is +not so much that man is a hopeless fool, as that Time, so far as he is +concerned, has, as we know, only just begun: it being, of course, +conceivable that the creation of a perfect society of men, as the first +requisite to a <i>régime</i> of culture, must nick to itself a longer loop +of time than the making of, say, a stratum of coal. A loquacious +person—he is one of your cherished "novel"-writers, by the way, if +that be indeed a Novel in which there is nowhere any pretence at +novelty—once assured me that he could never reflect without swelling +on the greatness of the age in which he lived, an age the mighty +civilisation of which he likened to the Augustan and Periclean. A +certain stony gaze of anthropological interest with which I regarded +his frontal bone seemed to strike the poor man dumb, and he took a +hurried departure. Could he have been ignorant that ours is, in +general, greater than the Periclean for the very reason that the +Divinity is neither the devil nor a bungler; that three thousand years +of human consciousness is not nothing; that a whole is greater than its +part, and a butterfly than a chrysalis? But it was the assumption that +it was therefore in any way great in the abstract that occasioned my +profound astonishment, and indeed contempt. Civilisation, if it means +anything, can only mean the art by which men live musically +together—to the lutings, as it were, of Panpipes, or say perhaps, to +triumphant organ-bursts of martial, marching dithyrambs. Any formula +defining it as "the art of lying back and getting elaborately tickled," +should surely at this hour be <i>too</i> primitive—<i>too</i> Opic—to bring +anything but a smile to the lips of grown white-skinned men; and the +very fact that such a definition can still find undoubting acceptance +in all quarters may be an indication that the true [Greek: <i>idéa</i>] +which this condition of being must finally assume is far indeed—far, +perhaps, by ages and aeons—from becoming part of the general +conception. Nowhere since the beginning has the gross problem of living +ever so much as approached solution, much less the delicate and +intricate one of living <i>together: à propos</i> of which your body +corporate not only still produces criminals (as the body-natural +fleas), but its very elementary organism cannot so much as catch a +really athletic one as yet. Meanwhile <i>you</i> and <i>I</i> are handicapped. +The individual travaileth in pain. In the struggle for quality, powers, +air, he spends his strength, and yet hardly escapes asphyxiation. He +can no more wriggle himself free of the psychic gravitations that +invest him than the earth can shake herself loose of the sun, or he of +the omnipotences that rivet him to the universe. If by chance one +shoots a downy hint of wings, an instant feeling of contrast puffs him +with self-consciousness: a tragedy at once: the unconscious being "the +alone complete." To attain to anything, he must needs screw the head up +into the atmosphere of the future, while feet and hands drip dark +ichors of despair from the crucifying cross of the crude present—<i>a +horrid strain</i>! Far up a nightly instigation of stars he sees: but he +may not strike them with the head. If earth were a boat, and mine, I +know well toward what wild azimuths I would compel her helm: but +gravity, gravity—chiefest curse of Eden's sin!—is hostile. When +indeed (as is ordained), the old mother swings herself into a sublimer +orbit, we on her back will follow: till then we make to ourselves +Icarian "organa" in vain. I mean to say that it is the plane of station +which is at fault: move that upward, you move all. But meantime is it +not Goethe who assures us that "further reacheth no man, make he what +stretching he will"? For Man, you perceive, is not many, but One. It is +absurd to suppose that England can be free while Poland is enslaved; +Paris is <i>far</i> from the beginnings of civilisation whilst Toobooloo and +Chicago are barbaric. Probably no ill-fated, microcephalous son of Adam +ever tumbled into a mistake quite so huge, so infantile, as did Dives, +if he imagined himself rich while Lazarus sat pauper at the gate. Not +many, I say, but one. Even Ham and I here in our retreat are not alone; +we are embarrassed by the uninvited spirit of the present; the adamant +root of the mountain on whose summit we stand is based ineradicably in +the low world. Yet, thank Heaven, Goethe was not <i>quite</i> right—as, +indeed, he proved in his proper person. I tell you, Shiel, I <i>know</i> +whether Mary did or did not murder Darnley; I know—as clearly, as +precisely, as a man can know—that Beatrice Cenci was not "guilty" as +certain recently-discovered documents "prove" her, but that the Shelley +version of the affair, though a guess, is the correct one. It <i>is</i> +possible, by taking thought, to add one cubit—or say a hand, or a +dactyl—to your stature; you may develop powers slightly—very +slightly, but distinctly, both in kind and degree—in advance of those +of the mass who live in or about the same cycle of time in which you +live. But it is only when the powers to which I refer are shared by the +mass—when what, for want of another term, I call the age of the +Cultured Mood has at length arrived—that their exercise will become +easy and familiar to the individual; and who shall say what +presciences, prisms, <i>séances</i>, what introspective craft, Genie +apocalypses, shall not <i>then</i> become possible to the few who stand +spiritually in the van of men.</p> + +<p>'All this, you will understand, I say as some sort of excuse for +myself, and for you, for any hesitation we may have shown in loosening +the very little puzzle you have placed before me—one which we +certainly must not regard as difficult of solution. Of course, looking +at all the facts, the first consideration that must inevitably rivet +the attention is that arising from the circumstance that Viscount +Randolph has strong reasons to wish his father dead. They are avowed +enemies; he is the <i>fiancé</i> of a princess whose husband he is probably +too poor to become, though he will very likely be rich enough when his +father dies; and so on. All that appears on the surface. On the other +hand, we—you and I—know the man: he is a person of gentle blood, as +moral, we suppose, as ordinary people, occupying a high station in the +world. It is impossible to imagine that such a person would commit an +assassination, or even countenance one, for any or all of the reasons +that present themselves. In our hearts, with or without clear proof, we +could hardly believe it of him. Earls' sons do not, in fact, go about +murdering people. Unless, then, we can so reason as to discover other +motives—strong, adequate, irresistible—and by "irresistible" I mean a +motive which must be <i>far</i> stronger than even the love of life +itself—we should, I think, in fairness dismiss him from our mind.</p> + +<p>'And yet it must be admitted that his conduct is not free of blame. He +contracts a sudden intimacy with the acknowledged culprit, whom he does +not seem to have known before. He meets her by night, corresponds with +her. Who and what is this woman? I think we could not be far wrong in +guessing some very old flame of Lord Pharanx's of <i>Théâtre des +Variétés</i> type, whom he has supported for years, and from whom, hearing +some story to her discredit, he threatens to withdraw his supplies. +However that be, Randolph writes to Cibras—a violent woman, a woman of +lawless passions—assuring her that in four or five days she will be +excluded from the will of his father; and in four or five days Cibras +plunges a knife into his father's bosom. It is a perfectly natural +sequence—though, of course, the <i>intention</i> to produce by his words +the actual effect produced might have been absent; indeed, the letter +of Lord Pharanx himself, had it been received, would have tended to +produce that very effect; for it not only gives an excellent +opportunity for converting into action those evil thoughts which +Randolph (thoughtlessly or guiltily) has instilled, but it further +tends to rouse her passions by cutting off from her all hopes of +favour. If we presume, then, as is only natural, that there was no such +intention on the part of the earl, we <i>may</i> make the same presumption +in the case of the son. Cibras, however, never receives the earl's +letter: on the morning of the same day she goes away to Bath, with the +double object, I suppose, of purchasing a weapon, and creating an +impression that she has left the country. How then does she know the +exact <i>locale</i> of Lord Pharanx's room? It is in an unusual part of the +mansion, she is unacquainted with any of the servants, a stranger to +the district. Can it be possible that Randolph <i>had told her</i>? And here +again, even in that case, you must bear in mind that Lord Pharanx also +told her in his note, and you must recognise the possibility of the +absence of evil intention on the part of the son. Indeed, I may go +further and show you that in all but every instance in which his +actions are in themselves <i>outré</i>, suspicious, they are rendered, not +less <i>outré</i>, but less suspicious, by the fact that Lord Pharanx +himself knew of them, shared in them. There was the cruel barbing of +that balcony window; about it the crudest thinker would argue thus to +himself: "Randolph practically incites Maude Cibras to murder his +father on the 5th, and on the 6th he has that window so altered in +order that, should she act on his suggestion, she will be caught on +attempting to leave the room, while he himself, the actual culprit +being discovered <i>en flagrant délit</i>, will escape every shadow of +suspicion." But, on the other hand, we know that the alteration was +made with Lord Pharanx's consent, most likely on his initiative—for he +leaves his favoured room during a whole day for that very purpose. So +with the letter to Cibras on the 8th—Randolph despatches it, but the +earl writes it. So with the disposal of the jewels in the apartment on +the 9th. There had been some burglaries in the neighbourhood, and the +suspicion at once arises in the mind of the crude reasoner: Could +Randolph—finding now that Cibras has "left the country," that, in +fact, the tool he had expected to serve his ends has failed him—could +he have thus brought those jewels there, and thus warned the servants +of their presence, in the hope that the intelligence might so get +abroad and lead to a burglary, in the course of which his father might +lose his life? There are evidences, you know, tending to show that the +burglary did actually at last take place, and the suspicion is, in view +of that, by no means unreasonable. And yet, militating against it, is +our knowledge that it was Lord Pharanx who "<i>chose</i>" to gather the +jewels round him; that it was in his presence that Randolph drew the +attention of the servant to them. In the matter, at least, of the +little political comedy the son seems to have acted alone; but you +surely cannot rid yourself of the impression that the radical speeches, +the candidature, and the rest of it, formed all of them only a very +elaborate, and withal clumsy, set of preliminaries to the <i>class</i>. +Anything, to make the perspective, the sequence of <i>that</i> seem natural. +But in the class, at any rate, we have the tacit acquiescence, or even +the cooperation of Lord Pharanx. You have described the conspiracy of +quiet which, for some reason or other, was imposed on the household; in +that reign of silence the bang of a door, the fall of a plate, becomes +a domestic tornado. But have you ever heard an agricultural labourer in +clogs or heavy boots ascend a stair? The noise is terrible. The tramp +of an army of them through the house and overhead, probably jabbering +uncouthly together, would be insufferable. Yet Lord Pharanx seems to +have made no objection; the novel institution is set up in his own +mansion, in an unusual part of it, probably against his own principles; +but we hear of no murmur from him. On the fatal day, too, the calm of +the house is rudely broken by a considerable commotion in Randolph's +room just overhead, caused by his preparation for "a journey to +London." But the usual angry remonstrance is not forthcoming from the +master. And do you not see how all this more than acquiescence of Lord +Pharanx in the conduct of his son deprives that conduct of half its +significance, its intrinsic suspiciousness?</p> + +<p>'A hasty reasoner then would inevitably jump to the conclusion that +Randolph was guilty of something—some evil intention—though of +precisely what he would remain in doubt. But a more careful reasoner +would pause: he would reflect that <i>as</i> the father was implicated in +those acts, and <i>as</i> he was innocent of any such intention, so might +possibly, even probably, be the son. This, I take it, has been the view +of the officials, whose logic is probably far in advance of their +imagination. But supposing we can adduce one act, undoubtedly actuated +by evil intention on the part of Randolph—one act in which his father +certainly did <i>not</i> participate—what follows next? Why, that we revert +at once to the view of the hasty reasoner, and conclude that <i>all</i> the +other acts in the same relation were actuated by the same evil motive; +and having reached that point, we shall be unable longer to resist the +conclusion that those of them in which his father had a share <i>might</i> +have sprung from a like motive in <i>his</i> mind also; nor should the mere +obvious impossibility of such a condition of things have even the very +least influence on us, as thinkers, in causing us to close our mind +against its logical possibility. I therefore make the inference, and +pass on.</p> + +<p>'Let us then see if we can by searching find out any absolutely certain +deviation from right on the part of Randolph, in which we may be quite +sure that his father was not an abettor. At eight on the night of the +murder it is dark; there has been some snow, but the fall has +ceased—how long before I know not, but so long that the interval +becomes sufficiently appreciable to cause remark. Now the party going +round the house come on two tracks of feet meeting at an angle. Of one +track we are merely told that it was made by the small foot of a woman, +and of it we know no more; of the other we learn that the feet were big +and the boots clumsy, and, it is added, the marks were <i>half +obliterated by the snow</i>. Two things then are clear: that the persons +who made them came from different directions, and probably made them at +different times. That, alone, by the way, may be a sufficient answer to +your question as to whether Cibras was in collusion with the +"burglars." But how does Randolph behave with reference to these +tracks? Though he carries the lantern, he fails to perceive the +first—the woman's—the discovery of which is made by a lad; but the +second, half hidden in the snow, he notices readily enough, and at once +points it out. He explains that burglars have been on the war-path. But +examine his horror of surprise when he hears that the window is closed; +when he sees the woman's bleeding fingers. He cannot help exclaiming, +"My God! what has happened <i>now</i>?" But why "now"? The word cannot refer +to his father's death, for that he knew, or guessed, beforehand, having +heard the shot. Is it not rather the exclamation of a man whose schemes +destiny has complicated? Besides, he should have <i>expected</i> to find the +window closed: no one except himself, Lord Pharanx, and the workman, +who was now dead, knew the secret of its construction; the burglars +therefore, having entered and robbed the room, one of them, intending +to go out, would press on the ledge, and the sash would fall on his +hand with what result we know. The others would then either break the +glass and so escape; or pass through the house; or remain prisoners. +That immoderate surprise was therefore absurdly illogical, after seeing +the burglar-track in the snow. But how, above all, do you account for +Lord Pharanx's silence during and after the burglars' visit—if there +was a visit? He was, you must remember, alive all that time; <i>they</i> did +not kill him; certainly they did not shoot him, for the shot is heard +after the snow has ceased to fall,—that is, after, long after, they +have left, since it was the falling snow that had half obliterated +their tracks; nor did they stab him, for to this Cibras confesses. Why +then, being alive, and not gagged, did he give no token of the presence +of his visitors? There were in fact no burglars at Orven Hall that +night.'</p> + +<p>'But the track!' I cried, 'the jewels found in the snow—the +neckerchief!'</p> + +<p>Zaleski smiled.</p> + +<p>'Burglars,' he said, 'are plain, honest folk who have a just notion of +the value of jewelry when they see it. They very properly regard it as +mere foolish waste to drop precious stones about in the snow, and would +refuse to company with a man weak enough to let fall his neckerchief on +a cold night. The whole business of the burglars was a particularly +inartistic trick, unworthy of its author. The mere facility with which +Randolph discovered the buried jewels by the aid of a dim lantern, +should have served as a hint to an educated police not afraid of facing +the improbable. The jewels had been <i>put</i> there with the object of +throwing suspicion on the imaginary burglars; with the same design the +catch of the window had been wrenched off, the sash purposely left +open, the track made, the valuables taken from Lord Pharanx's room. All +this was deliberately done by some one—would it be rash to say at once +by whom?</p> + +<p>'Our suspicions having now lost their whole character of vagueness, and +begun to lead us in a perfectly definite direction, let us examine the +statements of Hester Dyett. Now, it is immediately comprehensible to me +that the evidence of this woman at the public examinations was looked +at askance. There can be no doubt that she is a poor specimen of +humanity, an undesirable servant, a peering, hysterical caricature of a +woman. Her statements, if formally recorded, were not believed; or if +believed, were believed with only half the mind. No attempt was made to +deduce anything from them. But for my part, if I wanted specially +reliable evidence as to any matter of fact, it is precisely from such a +being that I would seek it. Let me draw you a picture of that class of +intellect. They have a greed for information, but the information, to +satisfy them, must relate to actualities; they have no sympathy with +fiction; it is from their impatience of what seems to be that springs +their curiosity of what <i>is</i>. Clio is their muse, and she alone. Their +whole lust is to gather knowledge through a hole, their whole faculty +is to <i>peep</i>. But they are destitute of imagination, and do not lie; in +their passion for realities they would esteem it a sacrilege to distort +history. They make straight for the substantial, the indubitable. For +this reason the Peniculi and Ergasili of Plautus seem to me far more +true to nature than the character of Paul Pry in Jerrold's comedy. In +one instance, indeed, the evidence of Hester Dyett appears, on the +surface of it, to be quite false. She declares that she sees a round +white object moving upward in the room. But the night being gloomy, her +taper having gone out, she must have been standing in a dense darkness. +How then could she see this object? Her evidence, it was argued, must +be designedly false, or else (as she was in an ecstatic condition) the +result of an excited fancy. But I have stated that such persons, +nervous, neurotic even as they may be, are not fanciful. I therefore +accept her evidence as true. And now, mark the consequence of that +acceptance. I am driven to admit that there must, from some source, +have been light in the room—a light faint enough, and diffused enough, +to escape the notice of Hester herself. This being so, it must have +proceeded from around, from below, or from above. There are no other +alternatives. Around these was nothing but the darkness of the night; +the room beneath, we know, was also in darkness. The light then came +from the room above—from the mechanic class-room. But there is only +one possible means by which the light from an upper can diffuse a lower +room. It <i>must</i> be by a hole in the intermediate boards. We are thus +driven to the discovery of an aperture of some sort in the flooring of +that upper chamber. Given this, the mystery of the round white object +"driven" upward disappears. We at once ask, why not <i>drawn</i> upward +through the newly-discovered aperture by a string too small to be +visible in the gloom? Assuredly it was drawn upward. And now having +established a hole in the ceiling of the room in which Hester stands, +is it unreasonable—even without further evidence—to suspect another +in the flooring? But we actually have this further evidence. As she +rushes to the door she falls, faints, and fractures the lower part of +her leg. Had she fallen <i>over</i> some object, as you supposed, the result +might have been a fracture also, but in a different part of the body; +being where it was, it could only have been caused by placing the foot +inadvertently in a hole while the rest of the body was in rapid motion. +But this gives us an approximate idea of the <i>size</i> of the lower hole; +it was at least big enough to admit the foot and lower leg, big enough +therefore to admit that "good-sized ball of cotton" of which the woman +speaks: and from the lower we are able to conjecture the size of the +upper. But how comes it that these holes are nowhere mentioned in the +evidence? It can only be because no one ever saw them. Yet the rooms +must have been examined by the police, who, if they existed, must have +seen them. They therefore did not exist: that is to say, the pieces +which had been removed from the floorings had by that time been neatly +replaced, and, in the case of the lower one, covered by the carpet, the +removal of which had caused so much commotion in Randolph's room on the +fatal day. Hester Dyett would have been able to notice and bring at +least one of the apertures forward in evidence, but she fainted before +she had time to find out the cause of her fall, and an hour later it +was, you remember, Randolph himself who bore her from the room. But +should not the aperture in the top floor have been observed by the +class? Undoubtedly, if its position was in the open space in the middle +of the room. But it was not observed, and therefore its position was +not there, but in the only other place left—behind the apparatus used +in demonstration. That then was <i>one</i> useful object which the +apparatus—and with it the elaborate hypocrisy of class, and speeches, +and candidature—served: it was made to act as a curtain, a screen. But +had it no other purpose? That question we may answer when we know its +name and its nature. And it is not beyond our powers to conjecture this +with something like certainty. For the only "machines" possible to use +in illustration of simple mechanics are the screw, the wedge, the +scale, the lever, the wheel-and-axle, and Atwood's machine. The +mathematical principles which any of these exemplify would, of course, +be incomprehensible to such a class, but the first five most of all, +and as there would naturally be some slight pretence of trying to make +the learners understand, I therefore select the last; and this +selection is justified when we remember that on the shot being heard, +Randolph leans for support on the "machine," and stands in its shadow; +but any of the others would be too small to throw any appreciable +shadow, except one—the wheel, and-axle—and that one would hardly +afford support to a tall man in the erect position. The Atwood's +machine is therefore forced on us; as to its construction, it is, as +you are aware, composed of two upright posts, with a cross-bar fitted +with pulleys and strings, and is intended to show the motion of bodies +acting under a constant force—the force of gravity, to wit. But now +consider all the really glorious uses to which those same pulleys may +be turned in lowering and lifting unobserved that "ball of cotton" +through the two apertures, while the other strings with the weights +attached are dangling before the dull eyes of the peasants. I need only +point out that when the whole company trooped out of the room, Randolph +was the last to leave it, and it is not now difficult to conjecture +why.</p> + +<p>'Of what, then, have we convicted Randolph? For one thing, we have +shown that by marks of feet in the snow preparation was made beforehand +for obscuring the cause of the earl's death. That death must therefore +have been at least expected, foreknown. Thus we convict him of +expecting it. And then, by an independent line of deduction, we can +also discover the <i>means</i> by which he expected it to occur. It is clear +that he did not expect it to occur when it did by the hand of Maude +Cibras—for this is proved by his knowledge that she had left the +neighbourhood, by his evidently genuine astonishment at the sight of +the closed window, and, above all, by his truly morbid desire to +establish a substantial, an irrefutable <i>alibi</i> for himself by going to +Plymouth on the day when there was every reason to suppose she would do +the deed—that is, on the 8th, the day of the earl's invitation. On the +fatal night, indeed, the same morbid eagerness to build up a clear +<i>alibi</i> is observable, for he surrounds himself with a cloud of +witnesses in the upper chamber. But that, you will admit, is not nearly +so perfect a one as a journey, say, to Plymouth would have been. Why +then, expecting the death, did he not take some such journey? Obviously +because on <i>this</i> occasion his personal presence was necessary. When, +<i>in conjunction</i> with this, we recall the fact that during the +intrigues with Cibras the lectures were discontinued, and again resumed +immediately on her unlooked-for departure, we arrive at the conclusion +that the means by which Lord Pharanx's death was expected to occur was +the personal presence of Randolph <i>in conjunction</i> with the political +speeches, the candidature, the class, the apparatus.</p> + +<p>'But though he stands condemned of foreknowing, and being in some sort +connected with, his father's death, I can nowhere find any indication +of his having personally accomplished it, or even of his ever having +had any such intention. The evidence is evidence of complicity—and +nothing more. And yet—and yet—even of <i>this</i> we began by acquitting +him unless we could discover, as I said, some strong, adequate, +altogether irresistible motive for such complicity. Failing this, we +ought to admit that at some point our argument has played us false, and +led us into conclusions wholly at variance with our certain knowledge +of the principles underlying human conduct in general. Let us therefore +seek for such a motive—something deeper than personal enmity, stronger +than personal ambition, <i>than the love of life itself!</i> And now, tell +me, at the time of the occurrence of this mystery, was the whole past +history of the House of Orven fully investigated?'</p> + +<p>'Not to my knowledge,' I answered; 'in the papers there were, of +course, sketches of the earl's career, but that I think was all.'</p> + +<p>'Yet it cannot be that their past was unknown, but only that it was +ignored. Long, I tell you, long and often, have I pondered on that +history, and sought to trace with what ghastly secret has been pregnant +the destiny, gloomful as Erebus and the murk of black-peplosed Nux, +which for centuries has hung its pall over the men of this ill-fated +house. Now at last I know. Dark, dark, and red with gore and horror is +that history; down the silent corridors of the ages have these +blood-soaked sons of Atreus fled shrieking before the pursuing talons +of the dread Eumenides. The first earl received his patent in 1535 from +the eighth Henry. Two years later, though noted as a rabid "king's +man," he joined the Pilgrimage of Grace against his master, and was +soon after executed, with Darcy and some other lords. His age was then +fifty. His son, meantime, had served in the king's army under Norfolk. +It is remarkable, by the way, that females have all along been rare in +the family, and that in no instance has there been more than one son. +The second earl, under the sixth Edward, suddenly threw up a civil +post, hastened to the army, and fell at the age of forty at the battle +of Pinkie in 1547. He was accompanied by his son. The third in 1557, +under Mary, renounced the Catholic faith, to which, both before and +since, the family have passionately clung, and suffered (at the age of +forty) the last penalty. The fourth earl died naturally, but suddenly, +in his bed at the age of fifty during the winter of 1566. At midnight +<i>of the same day</i> he was laid in the grave by his son. This son was +later on, in 1591, seen by <i>his</i> son to fall from a lofty balcony at +Orven Hall, while walking in his sleep at high noonday. Then for some +time nothing happens; but the eighth earl dies mysteriously in 1651 at +the age of forty-five. A fire occurring in his room, he leapt from a +window to escape the flames. Some of his limbs were thereby fractured, +but he was in a fair way to recovery when there was a sudden relapse, +soon ending in death. He was found to have been poisoned by <i>radix +aconiti indica</i>, a rare Arabian poison not known in Europe at that time +except to <i>savants</i>, and first mentioned by Acosta some months before. +An attendant was accused and tried, but acquitted. The then son of the +House was a Fellow of the newly-founded Royal Society, and author of a +now-forgotten work on Toxicology, which, however, I have read. No +suspicion, of course, fell on <i>him</i>.'</p> + +<p>As Zaleski proceeded with this retrospect, I could not but ask myself +with stirrings of the most genuine wonder, whether he could possess +this intimate knowledge of <i>all</i> the great families of Europe! It was +as if he had spent a part of his life in making special study of the +history of the Orvens.</p> + +<p>'In the same manner,' he went on, 'I could detail the annals of the +family from that time to the present. But all through they have been +marked by the same latent tragic elements; and I have said enough to +show you that in each of the tragedies there was invariably something +large, leering, something of which the mind demands explanation, but +seeks in vain to find it. Now we need no longer seek. Destiny did not +design that the last Lord of Orven should any more hide from the world +the guilty secret of his race. It was the will of the gods—and he +betrayed himself. "Return," he writes, "the beginning of the end is +come." What end?</p> + +<p><i>The</i> end—perfectly well known to Randolph, needing no explanation for +<i>him</i>. The old, old end, which in the ancient dim time led the first +lord, loyal still at heart, to forsake his king; and another, still +devout, to renounce his cherished faith, and yet another to set fire to +the home of his ancestors. You have called the two last scions of the +family "a proud and selfish pair of beings"; proud they were, and +selfish too, but you are in error if you think their selfishness a +personal one: on the contrary, they were singularly oblivious of self +in the ordinary sense of the word. Theirs was the pride and the +selfishness of <i>race</i>. What consideration, think you, other than the +weal of his house, could induce Lord Randolph to take on himself the +shame—for as such he certainly regards it—of a conversion to +radicalism? He would, I am convinced, have <i>died</i> rather than make this +pretence for merely personal ends. But he does it—and the reason? It +is because he has received that awful summons from home; because "the +end" is daily coming nearer, and it must not find him unprepared to +meet it; it is because Lord Pharanx's senses are becoming <i>too</i> acute; +because the clatter of the servants' knives at the other end of the +house inflames him to madness; because his excited palate can no longer +endure any food but the subtlest delicacies; because Hester Dyett is +able from the posture in which he sits to conjecture that he is +intoxicated; because, in fact, he is on the brink of the dreadful +malady which physicians call "<i>General Paralysis of the Insane</i>." You +remember I took from your hands the newspaper containing the earl's +letter to Cibras, in order to read it with my own eyes. I had my +reasons, and I was justified. That letter contains three mistakes in +spelling: "here" is printed "hear," "pass" appears as "pas," and "room" +as "rume." Printers' errors, you say? But not so—one might be, two in +that short paragraph could hardly be, three would be impossible. Search +the whole paper through, and I think you will not find another. Let us +reverence the theory of probabilities: the errors were the writer's, +not the printer's. General Paralysis of the Insane is known to have +this effect on the writing. It attacks its victims about the period of +middle age—the age at which the deaths of all the Orvens who died +mysteriously occurred. Finding then that the dire heritage of his +race—the heritage of madness—is falling or fallen on him, he summons +his son from India. On himself he passes sentence of death: it is the +tradition of the family, the secret vow of self-destruction handed down +through ages from father to son. But he must have aid: in these days it +is difficult for a man to commit the suicidal act without +detection—and if madness is a disgrace to the race, equally so is +suicide. Besides, the family is to be enriched by the insurances on his +life, and is thereby to be allied with royal blood; but the money will +be lost if the suicide be detected. Randolph therefore returns and +blossoms into a popular candidate.</p> + +<p>'For a time he is led to abandon his original plans by the appearance +of Maude Cibras; he hopes that <i>she</i> may be made to destroy the earl; +but when she fails him, he recurs to it—recurs to it all suddenly, for +Lord Pharanx's condition is rapidly becoming critical, patent to all +eyes, could any eye see him—so much so that on the last day none of +the servants are allowed to enter his room. We must therefore regard +Cibras as a mere addendum to, an extraneous element in, the tragedy, +not as an integral part of it. She did not shoot the noble lord, for +she had no pistol; nor did Randolph, for he was at a distance from the +bed of death, surrounded by witnesses; nor did the imaginary burglars. +The earl therefore shot himself; and it was the small globular silver +pistol, such as this'—here Zaleski drew a little embossed Venetian +weapon from a drawer near him—'that appeared in the gloom to the +excited Hester as a "ball of cotton," while it was being drawn upward +by the Atwood's machine. But if the earl shot himself he could not have +done so after being stabbed to the heart. Maude Cibras, therefore, +stabbed a dead man. She would, of course, have ample time for stealing +into the room and doing so after the shot was fired, and before the +party reached the balcony window, on account of the delay on the stairs +in procuring a second light; in going to the earl's door; in examining +the tracks, and so on. But having stabbed a dead man, she is not guilty +of murder. The message I just now sent by Ham was one addressed to the +Home Secretary, telling him on no account to let Cibras die to-morrow. +He well knows my name, and will hardly be silly enough to suppose me +capable of using words without meaning. It will be perfectly easy to +prove my conclusions, for the pieces removed from, and replaced in, the +floorings can still be detected, if looked for; the pistol is still, no +doubt, in Randolph's room, and its bore can be compared with the bullet +found in Lord Pharanx's brain; above all, the jewels stolen by the +"burglars" are still safe in some cabinet of the new earl, and may +readily be discovered I therefore expect that the dénoûment will now +take a somewhat different turn.'</p> + +<p>That the dénoûment did take a different turn, and pretty strictly in +accordance with Zaleski's forecast, is now matter of history, and the +incidents, therefore, need no further comment from me in this place.</p> + + + +<br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /> + +<a name="stone"></a><h2>THE STONE OF THE EDMUNDSBURY MONKS</h2> +<br /> + +<p>'Russia,' said Prince Zaleski to me one day, when I happened to be on a +visit to him in his darksome sanctuary—'Russia may be regarded as land +surrounded by ocean; that is to say, she is an island. In the same way, +it is sheer gross irrelevancy to speak of <i>Britain</i> as an island, +unless indeed the word be understood as a mere <i>modus loquendi</i> arising +out of a rather poor geographical pleasantry. Britain, in reality, is a +small continent. Near her—a little to the south-east—is situated the +large island of Europe. Thus, the enlightened French traveller passing +to these shores should commune within himself: "I now cross to the +Mainland"; and retracing his steps: "I now return to the fragment rent +by wrack and earthshock from the Mother-country." And this I say not in +the way of paradox, but as the expression of a sober truth. I have in +my mind merely the relative depth and extent—the <i>non-insularity</i>, in +fact—of the impressions made by the several nations on the world. But +this island of Europe has herself an island of her own: the name of it, +Russia. She, of all lands, is the <i>terra incognita</i>, the unknown land; +till quite lately she was more—she was the undiscovered, the +unsuspected land. She <i>has</i> a literature, you know, and a history, and +a language, and a purpose—but of all this the world has hardly so much +as heard. Indeed, she, and not any Antarctic Sea whatever, is the real +Ultima Thule of modern times, the true Island of Mystery.'</p> + +<p>I reproduce these remarks of Zaleski here, not so much on account of +the splendid tribute to my country contained in them, as because it +ever seemed to me—and especially in connection with the incident I am +about to recall—that in this respect at least he was a genuine son of +Russia; if she is the Land, so truly was he the Man, of Mystery. I who +knew him best alone knew that it was impossible to know him. He was a +being little of the present: with one arm he embraced the whole past; +the fingers of the other heaved on the vibrant pulse of the future. He +seemed to me—I say it deliberately and with forethought—to possess +the unparalleled power not merely of disentangling in retrospect, but +of unravelling in prospect, and I have known him to relate <i>coming</i> +events with unimaginable minuteness of precision. He was nothing if not +superlative: his diatribes, now culminating in a very <i>extravaganza</i> of +hyperbole—now sailing with loose wing through the downy, witched, +Dutch cloud-heaps of some quaintest tramontane Nephelococcugia of +thought—now laying down law of the Medes for the actual world of +to-day—had oft-times the strange effect of bringing back to my mind +the very singular old-epic epithet, [Greek: aenemoen]—<i>airy</i>—as +applied to human thought. The mere grip of his memory was not simply +extraordinary, it had in it a token, a hint, of the strange, the +pythic—nay, the sibylline. And as his reflecting intellect, moreover, +had all the lightness of foot of a chamois kid, unless you could +contrive to follow each dazzlingly swift successive step, by the sum of +which he attained his Alp-heights, he inevitably left on you the +astounding, the confounding impression of mental omnipresence.</p> + +<p>I had brought with me a certain document, a massive book bound in iron +and leather, the diary of one Sir Jocelin Saul. This I had abstracted +from a gentleman of my acquaintance, the head of a firm of inquiry +agents in London, into whose hand, only the day before, it had come. A +distant neighbour of Sir Jocelin, hearing by chance of his extremity, +had invoked the assistance of this firm; but the aged baronet, being in +a state of the utmost feebleness, terror, and indeed hysterical +incoherence, had been able to utter no word in explanation of his +condition or wishes, and, in silent abandonment, had merely handed the +book to the agent.</p> + +<p>A day or two after I had reached the desolate old mansion which the +prince occupied, knowing that he might sometimes be induced to take an +absorbing interest in questions that had proved themselves too +profound, or too intricate, for ordinary solution, I asked him if he +was willing to hear the details read out from the diary, and on his +assenting, I proceeded to do so.</p> + +<p>The brief narrative had reference to a very large and very valuable +oval gem enclosed in the substance of a golden chalice, which chalice, +in the monastery of St. Edmundsbury, had once lain centuries long +within the Loculus, or inmost coffin, wherein reposed the body of St. +Edmund. By pressing a hidden pivot, the cup (which was composed of two +equal parts, connected by minute hinges) sprang open, and in a hollow +space at the bottom was disclosed the gem. Sir Jocelin Saul, I may say, +was lineally connected with—though, of course, not descendant +from—that same Jocelin of Brakelonda, a brother of the Edmundsbury +convent, who wrote the now so celebrated <i>Jocelini Chronica</i>: and the +chalice had fallen into the possession of the family, seemingly at some +time prior to the suppression of the monastery about 1537. On it was +inscribed in old English characters of unknown date the words:</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">'Shulde this Ston stalen bee,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Or shuld it chaunges dre,</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The Houss of Sawl and hys Hed anoon shal de.'</span><br /> + +<p>The stone itself was an intaglio, and had engraved on its surface the +figure of a mythological animal, together with some nearly obliterated +letters, of which the only ones remaining legible were those forming +the word 'Has.' As a sure precaution against the loss of the gem, +another cup had been made and engraved in an exactly similar manner, +inside of which, to complete the delusion, another stone of the same +size and cut, but of comparatively valueless material, had been placed.</p> + +<p>Sir Jocelin Saul, a man of intense nervosity, lived his life alone in a +remote old manor-house in Suffolk, his only companion being a person of +Eastern origin, named Ul-Jabal. The baronet had consumed his vitality +in the life-long attempt to sound the too fervid Maelstrom of Oriental +research, and his mind had perhaps caught from his studies a tinge of +their morbidness, their esotericism, their insanity. He had for some +years past been engaged in the task of writing a stupendous work on +Pre-Zoroastrian Theogonies, in which, it is to be supposed, Ul-Jabal +acted somewhat in the capacity of secretary. But I will give <i>verbatim</i> +the extracts from his diary:</p> + +<p>'<i>June 11</i>.—This is my birthday. Seventy years ago exactly I slid from +the belly of the great Dark into this Light and Life. My God! My God! +it is briefer than the rage of an hour, fleeter than a mid-day trance. +Ul-Jabal greeted me warmly—seemed to have been looking forward to +it—and pointed out that seventy is of the fateful numbers, its only +factors being seven, five, and two: the last denoting the duality of +Birth and Death; five, Isolation; seven, Infinity. I informed him that +this was also my father's birthday; and <i>his</i> father's; and repeated +the oft-told tale of how the latter, just seventy years ago to-day, +walking at twilight by the churchyard-wall, saw the figure of <i>himself</i> +sitting on a grave-stone, and died five weeks later riving with the +pangs of hell. Whereat the sceptic showed his two huge rows of teeth.</p> + +<p>'What is his peculiar interest in the Edmundsbury chalice? On each +successive birthday when the cup has been produced, he has asked me to +show him the stone. Without any well-defined reason I have always +declined, but to-day I yielded. He gazed long into its sky-blue depth, +and then asked if I had no idea what the inscription "Has" meant. I +informed him that it was one of the lost secrets of the world.</p> + +<p>'<i>June l5</i>.—Some new element has entered into our existence here. +Something threatens me. I hear the echo of a menace against my sanity +and my life. It is as if the garment which enwraps me has grown too +hot, too heavy for me. A notable drowsiness has settled on my brain—a +drowsiness in which thought, though slow, is a thousandfold more +fiery-vivid than ever. Oh, fair goddess of Reason, desert not me, thy +chosen child!</p> + +<p>'<i>June 18</i>.—Ul-Jabal?—that man is <i>the very Devil incarnate!</i></p> + +<p>'<i>June 19</i>.—So much for my bounty, all my munificence, to this +poisonous worm. I picked him up on the heights of the Mountain of +Lebanon, a cultured savage among cultured savages, and brought him here +to be a prince of thought by my side. What though his plundered +wealth—the debt I owe him—has saved me from a sort of ruin? Have not +<i>I</i> instructed him in the sweet secret of Reason?</p> + +<p>'I lay back on my bed in the lonely morning watches, my soul heavy as +with the distilled essence of opiates, and in vivid vision knew that he +had entered my apartment. In the twilight gloom his glittering rows of +shark's teeth seemed impacted on my eyeball—I saw <i>them</i>, and nothing +else. I was not aware when he vanished from the room. But at daybreak I +crawled on hands and knees to the cabinet containing the chalice. The +viperous murderer! He has stolen my gem, well knowing that with it he +has stolen my life. The stone is gone—gone, my precious gem. A +weakness overtook me, and I lay for many dreamless hours naked on the +marble floor.</p> + +<p>'Does the fool think to hide ought from my eyes? Can he imagine that I +shall not recover my precious gem, my stone of Saul?</p> + +<p>'<i>June 20</i>.—Ah, Ul-Jabal—my brave, my noble Son of the Prophet of +God! He has replaced the stone! He would not slay an aged man. The +yellow ray of his eye, it is but the gleam of the great thinker, +not—not—the gleam of the assassin. Again, as I lay in +semi-somnolence, I saw him enter my room, this time more distinctly. He +went up to the cabinet. Shaking the chalice in the dawning, some hours +after he had left, I heard with delight the rattle of the stone. I +might have known he would replace it; I should not have doubted his +clemency to a poor man like me. But the strange being!—he has taken +the <i>other</i> stone from the <i>other</i> cup—a thing of little value to any +man! Is Ul-Jabal mad or I?</p> + +<p>'<i>June 21</i>.—Merciful Lord in Heaven! he has <i>not</i> replaced it—not +<i>it</i>—but another instead of it. To-day I actually opened the chalice, +and saw. He has put a stone there, the same in size, in cut, in +engraving, but different in colour, in quality, in value—a stone I +have never seen before. How has he obtained it—whence? I must brace +myself to probe, to watch; I must turn myself into an eye to search +this devil's-bosom. My life, this subtle, cunning Reason of mine, hangs +in the balance.</p> + +<p>'<i>June 22</i>.—Just now he offered me a cup of wine. I almost dashed it +to the ground before him. But he looked steadfastly into my eye. I +flinched: and drank—drank.</p> + +<p>'Years ago, when, as I remember, we were at Balbec, I saw him one day +make an almost tasteless preparation out of pure black nicotine, which +in mere wanton lust he afterwards gave to some of the dwellers by the +Caspian to drink. But the fiend would surely never dream of giving to +me that browse of hell—to me an aged man, and a thinker, a seer.</p> + +<p>'<i>June 23</i>.—The mysterious, the unfathomable Ul-Jabal! Once again, as +I lay in heavy trance at midnight, has he invaded, calm and noiseless +as a spirit, the sanctity of my chamber. Serene on the swaying air, +which, radiant with soft beams of vermil and violet light, rocked me +into variant visions of heaven, I reclined and regarded him unmoved. +The man has replaced the valueless stone in the modern-made chalice, +and has now stolen the false stone from the other, which <i>he himself</i> +put there! In patience will I possess this my soul, and watch what +shall betide. My eyes shall know no slumber!</p> + +<p>'<i>June 24</i>.—No more—no more shall I drink wine from the hand of +Ul-Jabal. My knees totter beneath the weight of my lean body. Daggers +of lambent fever race through my brain incessant. Some fibrillary +twitchings at the right angle of the mouth have also arrested my +attention.</p> + +<p>'<i>June 25</i>.—He has dared at open mid-day to enter my room. I watched +him from an angle of the stairs pass along the corridor and open my +door. But for the terrifying, death-boding thump, thump of my heart, I +should have faced the traitor then, and told him that I knew all his +treachery. Did I say that I had strange fibrillary twitchings at the +right angle of my mouth, and a brain on fire? I have ceased to write my +book—the more the pity for the world, not for me.</p> + +<p>'<i>June 26</i>.—Marvellous to tell, the traitor, Ul-Jabal, has now placed +<i>another</i> stone in the Edmundsbury chalice—also identical in nearly +every respect with the original gem. This, then, was the object of his +entry into my room yesterday. So that he has first stolen the real +stone and replaced it by another; then he has stolen this other and +replaced it by yet another; he has beside stolen the valueless stone +from the modern chalice, and then replaced it. Surely a man gone rabid, +a man gone dancing, foaming, raving mad!</p> + +<p>'<i>June 28</i>.—I have now set myself to the task of recovering my jewel. +It is here, and I shall find it. Life against life—and which is the +best life, mine or this accursed Ishmaelite's? If need be, I will do +murder—I, with this withered hand—so that I get back the heritage +which is mine.</p> + +<p>'To-day, when I thought he was wandering in the park, I stole into his +room, locking the door on the inside. I trembled exceedingly, knowing +that his eyes are in every place. I ransacked the chamber, dived among +his clothes, but found no stone. One singular thing in a drawer I saw: +a long, white beard, and a wig of long and snow-white hair. As I passed +out of the chamber, lo, he stood face to face with me at the door in +the passage. My heart gave one bound, and then seemed wholly to cease +its travail. Oh, I must be sick unto death, weaker than a bruised reed! +When I woke from my swoon he was supporting me in his arms. "Now," he +said, grinning down at me, "now you have at last delivered all into my +hands." He left me, and I saw him go into his room and lock the door +upon himself. What is it I have delivered into the madman's hands?</p> + +<p>'<i>July 1</i>.—Life against life—and his, the young, the stalwart, rather +than mine, the mouldering, the sere. I love life. Not <i>yet</i> am I ready +to weigh anchor, and reeve halliard, and turn my prow over the watery +paths of the wine-brown Deeps. Oh no. Not yet. Let <i>him</i> die. Many and +many are the days in which I shall yet see the light, walk, think. I am +averse to end the number of my years: there is even a feeling in me at +times that this worn body shall never, never taste of death. The +chalice predicts indeed that I and my house shall end when the stone is +lost—a mere fiction <i>at first</i>, an idler's dream <i>then</i>, but +now—now—that the prophecy has stood so long a part of the reality of +things, and a fact among facts—no longer fiction, but Adamant, stern +as the very word of God. Do I not feel hourly since it has gone how the +surges of life ebb, ebb ever lower in my heart? Nay, nay, but there is +hope. I have here beside me an Arab blade of subtle Damascene steel, +insinuous to pierce and to hew, with which in a street of Bethlehem I +saw a Syrian's head cleft open—a gallant stroke! The edges of this I +have made bright and white for a nuptial of blood.</p> + +<p>'<i>July 2</i>.—I spent the whole of the last night in searching every nook +and crack of the house, using a powerful magnifying lens. At times I +thought Ul-Jabal was watching me, and would pounce out and murder me. +Convulsive tremors shook my frame like earthquake. Ah me, I fear I am +all too frail for this work. Yet dear is the love of life.</p> + +<p>'<i>July 7</i>.—The last days I have passed in carefully searching the +grounds, with the lens as before. Ul-Jabal constantly found pretexts +for following me, and I am confident that every step I took was known +to him. No sign anywhere of the grass having been disturbed. Yet my +lands are wide, and I cannot be sure. The burden of this mighty task is +greater than I can bear. I am weaker than a bruised reed. Shall I not +slay my enemy, and make an end?</p> + +<p>'<i>July</i> 8.—Ul-Jabal has been in my chamber again! I watched him +through a crack in the panelling. His form was hidden by the bed, but I +could see his hand reflected in the great mirror opposite the door. +First, I cannot guess why, he moved to a point in front of the mirror +the chair in which I sometimes sit. He then went to the box in which +lie my few garments—and opened it. Ah, I have the stone—safe—safe! +He fears my cunning, ancient eyes, and has hidden it in the one place +where I would be least likely to seek it—<i>in my own trunk</i>! And yet I +dread, most intensely I dread, to look.</p> + +<p>'<i>July</i> 9.—The stone, alas, is not there! At the last moment he must +have changed his purpose. Could his wondrous sensitiveness of intuition +have made him feel that my eyes were looking in on him?</p> + +<p>'<i>July 10</i>.—In the dead of night I knew that a stealthy foot had gone +past my door. I rose and threw a mantle round me; I put on my head my +cap of fur; I took the tempered blade in my hands; then crept out into +the dark, and followed. Ul-Jabal carried a small lantern which revealed +him to me. My feet were bare, but he wore felted slippers, which to my +unfailing ear were not utterly noiseless. He descended the stairs to +the bottom of the house, while I crouched behind him in the deepest +gloom of the corners and walls. At the bottom he walked into the +pantry: there stopped, and turned the lantern full in the direction of +the spot where I stood; but so agilely did I slide behind a pillar, +that he could not have seen me. In the pantry he lifted the trap-door, +and descended still further into the vaults beneath the house. Ah, the +vaults,—the long, the tortuous, the darksome vaults,—how had I +forgotten them? Still I followed, rent by seismic shocks of terror. I +had not forgotten the weapon: could I creep near enough, I felt that I +might plunge it into the marrow of his back. He opened the iron door of +the first vault and passed in. If I could lock him in?—but he held the +key. On and on he wound his way, holding the lantern near the ground, +his head bent down. The thought came to me <i>then</i>, that, had I but the +courage, one swift sweep, and all were over. I crept closer, closer. +Suddenly he turned round, and made a quick step in my direction. I saw +his eyes, the murderous grin of his jaw. I know not if he saw +me—thought forsook me. The weapon fell with clatter and clangor from +my grasp, and in panic fright I fled with extended arms and the +headlong swiftness of a stripling, through the black labyrinths of the +caverns, through the vacant corridors of the house, till I reached my +chamber, the door of which I had time to fasten on myself before I +dropped, gasping, panting for very life, on the floor.</p> + +<p>'<i>July 11</i>.—I had not the courage to see Ul-Jabal to-day. I have +remained locked in my chamber all the time without food or water. My +tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth.</p> + +<p>'<i>July 12</i>.—I took heart and crept downstairs. I met him in the study. +He smiled on me, and I on him, as if nothing had happened between us. +Oh, our old friendship, how it has turned into bitterest hate! I had +taken the false stone from the Edmundsbury chalice and put it in the +pocket of my brown gown, with the bold intention of showing it to him, +and asking him if he knew aught of it. But when I faced him, my courage +failed again. We drank together and ate together as in the old days of +love.</p> + +<p>'July l3.—I cannot think that I have not again imbibed some +soporiferous drug. A great heaviness of sleep weighed on my brain till +late in the day. When I woke my thoughts were in wild distraction, and +a most peculiar condition of my skin held me fixed before the mirror. +It is dry as parchment, and brown as the leaves of autumn.</p> + +<p>'July l4.—Ul-Jabal is gone! And I am left a lonely, a desolate old +man! He said, though I swore it was false, that I had grown to mistrust +him! that I was hiding something from him! that he could live with me +no more! No more, he said, should I see his face! The debt I owe him he +would forgive. He has taken one small parcel with him,—and is gone!</p> + +<p>'July l5.—Gone! gone! In mazeful dream I wander with uncovered head +far and wide over my domain, seeking I know not what. The stone he has +with him—the precious stone of Saul. I feel the life-surge ebbing, +ebbing in my heart.'</p> + +<p>Here the manuscript abruptly ended.</p> + +<p>Prince Zaleski had listened as I read aloud, lying back on his Moorish +couch and breathing slowly from his lips a heavy reddish vapour, which +he imbibed from a very small, carved, bismuth pipette. His face, as far +as I could see in the green-grey crepuscular atmosphere of the +apartment, was expressionless. But when I had finished he turned fully +round on me, and said:</p> + +<p>'You perceive, I hope, the sinister meaning of all this?'</p> + +<p>'<i>Has</i> it a meaning?'</p> + +<p>Zaleski smiled.</p> + +<p>'Can you doubt it? in the shape of a cloud, the pitch of a thrush's +note, the <i>nuance</i> of a sea-shell you would find, had you only insight +<i>enough</i>, inductive and deductive cunning <i>enough</i>, not only a meaning, +but, I am convinced, a quite endless significance. Undoubtedly, in a +human document of this kind, there is a meaning; and I may say at once +that this meaning is entirely transparent to me. Pity only that you did +not read the diary to me before.'</p> + +<p>'Why?'</p> + +<p>'Because we might, between us, have prevented a crime, and saved a +life. The last entry in the diary was made on the 15th of July. What +day is this?'</p> + +<p>'This is the 20th.'</p> + +<p>'Then I would wager a thousand to one that we are too late. There is +still, however, the one chance left. The time is now seven o'clock: +seven of the evening, I think, not of the morning; the houses of +business in London are therefore closed. But why not send my man, Ham, +with a letter by train to the private address of the person from whom +you obtained the diary, telling him to hasten immediately to Sir +Jocelin Saul, and on no consideration to leave his side for a moment? +Ham would reach this person before midnight, and understanding that the +matter was one of life and death, he would assuredly do your bidding.'</p> + +<p>As I was writing the note suggested by Zaleski, I turned and asked him:</p> + +<p>'From whom shall I say that the danger is to be expected—from the +Indian?'</p> + +<p>'From Ul-Jabal, yes; but by no means Indian—Persian.'</p> + +<p>Profoundly impressed by this knowledge of detail derived from sources +which had brought me no intelligence, I handed the note to the negro, +telling him how to proceed, and instructing him before starting from +the station to search all the procurable papers of the last few days, +and to return in case he found in any of them a notice of the death of +Sir Jocelin Saul. Then I resumed my seat by the side of Zaleski.</p> + +<p>'As I have told you,' he said, 'I am fully convinced that our messenger +has gone on a bootless errand. I believe you will find that what has +really occurred is this: either yesterday, or the day before, Sir +Jocelin was found by his servant—I imagine he had a servant, though no +mention is made of any—lying on the marble floor of his chamber, dead. +Near him, probably by his side, will be found a gem—an oval stone, +white in colour—the same in fact which Ul-Jabal last placed in the +Edmundsbury chalice. There will be no marks of violence—no trace of +poison—the death will be found to be a perfectly natural one. Yet, in +this case, a particularly wicked murder has been committed. There are, +I assure you, to my positive knowledge forty-three—and in one island +in the South Seas, forty-four—different methods of doing murder, any +one of which would be entirely beyond the scope of the introspective +agencies at the ordinary disposal of society.</p> + +<p>'But let us bend our minds to the details of this matter. Let us ask +first, <i>who</i> is this Ul-Jabal? I have said that he is a Persian, and of +this there is abundant evidence in the narrative other than his mere +name. Fragmentary as the document is, and not intended by the writer to +afford the information, there is yet evidence of the religion of this +man, of the particular sect of that religion to which he belonged, of +his peculiar shade of colour, of the object of his stay at the +manor-house of Saul, of the special tribe amongst whom he formerly +lived. "What," he asks, when his greedy eyes first light on the +long-desired gem, "what is the meaning of the inscription 'Has'"—the +meaning which <i>he</i> so well knew. "One of the lost secrets of the +world," replies the baronet. But I can hardly understand a learned +Orientalist speaking in that way about what appears to me a very patent +circumstance: it is clear that he never earnestly applied himself to +the solution of the riddle, or else—what is more likely, in spite of +his rather high-flown estimate of his own "Reason"—that his mind, and +the mind of his ancestors, never was able to go farther back in time +than the Edmundsbury Monks. But <i>they</i> did not make the stone, nor did +they dig it from the depths of the earth in Suffolk—they got it from +some one, and it is not difficult to say with certainty from whom. The +stone, then, might have been engraved by that someone, or by the +someone from whom <i>he</i> received it, and so on back into the dimnesses +of time. And consider the character of the engraving—it consists of <i>a +mythological animal</i>, and some words, of which the letters "Has" only +are distinguishable. But the animal, at least, is pure Persian. The +Persians, you know, were not only quite worthy competitors with the +Hebrews, the Egyptians, and later on the Greeks, for excellence in the +glyptic art, but this fact is remarkable, that in much the same way +that the figure of the <i>scarabaeus</i> on an intaglio or cameo is a pretty +infallible indication of an Egyptian hand, so is that of a priest or a +grotesque animal a sure indication of a Persian. We may say, then, from +that evidence alone—though there is more—that this gem was certainly +Persian. And having reached that point, the mystery of "Has" vanishes: +for we at once jump at the conclusion that that too is Persian. But +Persian, you say, written in English characters? Yes, and it was +precisely this fact that made its meaning one of what the baronet +childishly calls "the lost secrets of the world": for every successive +inquirer, believing it part of an English phrase, was thus hopelessly +led astray in his investigation. "Has" is, in fact, part of the word +"Hasn-us-Sabah," and the mere circumstance that some of it has been +obliterated, while the figure of the mystic animal remains intact, +shows that it was executed by one of a nation less skilled in the art +of graving in precious stones than the Persians,—by a rude, mediaeval +Englishman, in short,—the modern revival of the art owing its origin, +of course, to the Medici of a later age. And of this Englishman—who +either graved the stone himself, or got some one else to do it for +him—do we know nothing? We know, at least, that he was certainly a +fighter, probably a Norman baron, that on his arm he bore the cross of +red, that he trod the sacred soil of Palestine. Perhaps, to prove this, +I need hardly remind you who Hasn-us-Sabah was. It is enough if I say +that he was greatly mixed up in the affairs of the Crusaders, lending +his irresistible arms now to this side, now to that. He was the chief +of the heterodox Mohammedan sect of the Assassins (this word, I +believe, is actually derived from his name); imagined himself to be an +incarnation of the Deity, and from his inaccessible rock-fortress of +Alamut in the Elburz exercised a sinister influence on the intricate +politics of the day. The Red Cross Knights called him Shaikh-ul-Jabal +—the Old Man of the Mountains, that very nickname connecting +him infallibly with the Ul-Jabal of our own times. Now three +well-known facts occur to me in connection with this stone of the House +of Saul: the first, that Saladin met in battle, and defeated, <i>and +plundered</i>, in a certain place, on a certain day, this Hasn-us-Sabah, +or one of his successors bearing the same name; the second, that about +this time there was a cordial <i>rapprochement</i> between Saladin and +Richard the Lion, and between the Infidels and the Christians +generally, during which a free interchange of gems, then regarded as of +deep mystic importance, took place—remember "The Talisman," and the +"Lee Penny"; the third, that soon after the fighters of Richard, and +then himself, returned to England, the Loculus or coffin of St. Edmund +(as we are informed by the <i>Jocelini Chronica</i>) was <i>opened by the +Abbot</i> at midnight, and the body of the martyr exposed. On such +occasions it was customary to place gems and relics in the coffin, when +it was again closed up. Now, the chalice with the stone was taken from +this loculus; and is it possible not to believe that some knight, to +whom it had been presented by one of Saladin's men, had in turn +presented it to the monastery, first scratching uncouthly on its +surface the name of Hasn to mark its semi-sacred origin, or perhaps +bidding the monks to do so? But the Assassins, now called, I think, "al +Hasani" or "Ismaili"—"that accursed <i>Ishmaelite</i>," the baronet +exclaims in one place—still live, are still a flourishing sect +impelled by fervid religious fanaticisms. And where think you is their +chief place of settlement? Where, but on the heights of that same +"Lebanon" on which Sir Jocelin "picked up" his too doubtful scribe and +literary helper?</p> + +<p>'It now becomes evident that Ul-Jabal was one of the sect of the +Assassins, and that the object of his sojourn at the manor-house, of +his financial help to the baronet, of his whole journey perhaps to +England, was the recovery of the sacred gem which once glittered on the +breast of the founder of his sect. In dread of spoiling all by +over-rashness, he waits, perhaps for years, till he makes sure that the +stone is the right one by seeing it with his own eyes, and learns the +secret of the spring by which the chalice is opened. He then proceeds +to steal it. So far all is clear enough. Now, this too is conceivable, +that, intending to commit the theft, he had beforehand provided himself +with another stone similar in size and shape—these being well known to +him—to the other, in order to substitute it for the real stone, and +so, for a time at least, escape detection. It is presumable that the +chalice was not often <i>opened</i> by the baronet, and this would therefore +have been a perfectly rational device on the part of Ul-Jabal. But +assuming this to be his mode of thinking, how ludicrously absurd +appears all the trouble he took to <i>engrave</i> the false stone in an +exactly similar manner to the other. <i>That</i> could not help him in +producing the deception, for that he did not contemplate the stone +being <i>seen</i>, but only <i>heard</i> in the cup, is proved by the fact that +he selected a stone of a different <i>colour</i>. This colour, as I shall +afterwards show you, was that of a pale, brown-spotted stone. But we +are met with something more extraordinary still when we come to the +last stone, the white one—I shall prove that it was white—which +Ul-Jabal placed in the cup. Is it possible that he had provided <i>two</i> +substitutes, and that he had engraved these <i>two</i>, without object, in +the same minutely careful manner? Your mind refuses to conceive it; and +<i>having</i> done this, declines, in addition, to believe that he had +prepared even one substitute; and I am fully in accord with you in this +conclusion.</p> + +<p>'We may say then that Ul-Jabal had not <i>prepared</i> any substitute; and +it may be added that it was a thing altogether beyond the limits of the +probable that he could <i>by chance</i> have possessed two old gems exactly +similar in every detail down to the very half-obliterated letters of +the word "Hasn-us-Sabah." I have now shown, you perceive, that he did +not make them purposely, and that he did not possess them accidentally. +Nor were they the baronet's, for we have his declaration that he had +never seen them before. Whence then did the Persian obtain them? That +point will immediately emerge into clearness, when we have sounded his +motive for replacing the one false stone by the other, and, above all, +for taking away the valueless stone, and then replacing it. And in +order to lead you up to the comprehension of this motive, I begin by +making the bold assertion that Ul-Jabal had not in his possession the +real St. Edmundsbury stone at all.</p> + +<p>'You are surprised; for you argue that if we are to take the baronet's +evidence at all, we must take it in this particular also, and he +positively asserts that he saw the Persian take the stone. It is true +that there are indubitable signs of insanity in the document, but it is +the insanity of a diseased mind manifesting itself by fantastic +exaggeration of sentiment, rather than of a mind confiding to itself +its own delusions as to matters of fact. There is therefore nothing so +certain as that Ul-Jabal did steal the gem; but these two things are +equally evident: that by some means or other it very soon passed out of +his possession, and that when it had so passed, he, for his part, +believed it to be in the possession of the baronet. "Now," he cries in +triumph, one day as he catches Sir Jocelin in his room—"<i>now</i> you have +delivered all into my hands." "All" what, Sir Jocelin wonders. "All," +of course, meant the stone. He believes that the baronet has done +precisely what the baronet afterwards believes that <i>he</i> has +done—hidden away the stone in the most secret of all places, in his +own apartment, to wit. The Persian, sure now at last of victory, +accordingly hastens into his chamber, and "locks the door," in order, +by an easy search, to secure his prize. When, moreover, the baronet is +examining the house at night with his lens, he believes that Ul-Jabal +is spying his movements; when he extends his operations to the park, +the other finds pretexts to be near him. Ul-Jabal dogs his footsteps +like a shadow. But supposing he had really had the jewel, and had +deposited it in a place of perfect safety—such as, with or without +lenses, the extensive grounds of the manor-house would certainly have +afforded—his more reasonable <i>rôle</i> would have been that of +unconscious <i>nonchalance</i>, rather than of agonised interest. But, in +fact, he supposed the owner of the stone to be himself seeking a secure +hiding-place for it, and is resolved at all costs on knowing the +secret. And again in the vaults beneath the house Sir Jocelin reports +that Ul-Jabal "holds the lantern near the ground, with his head bent +down": can anything be better descriptive of the attitude of <i>search</i>? +Yet each is so sure that the other possesses the gem, that neither is +able to suspect that both are seekers.</p> + +<p>'But, after all, there is far better evidence of the non-possession of +the stone by the Persian than all this—and that is the murder of the +baronet, for I can almost promise you that our messenger will return in +a few minutes. Now, it seems to me that Ul-Jabal was not really +murderous, averse rather to murder; thus the baronet is often in his +power, swoons in his arms, lies under the influence of narcotics in +semi-sleep while the Persian is in his room, and yet no injury is done +him. Still, when the clear necessity to murder—the clear means of +gaining the stone—presents itself to Ul-Jabal, he does not hesitate a +moment—indeed, he has already made elaborate preparations for that +very necessity. And when was it that this necessity presented itself? +It was when the baronet put the false stone in the pocket of a loose +gown for the purpose of confronting the Persian with it. But what kind +of pocket? I think you will agree with me, that male garments, +admitting of the designation "gown," have usually only outer +pockets—large, square pockets, simply sewed on to the outside of the +robe. But a stone of that size <i>must</i> have made such a pocket bulge +outwards. Ul-Jabal must have noticed it. Never before has he been +perfectly sure that the baronet carried the long-desired gem about on +his body; but now at last he knows beyond all doubt. To obtain it, +there are several courses open to him: he may rush there and then on +the weak old man and tear the stone from him; he may ply him with +narcotics, and extract it from the pocket during sleep. But in these +there is a small chance of failure; there is a certainty of near or +ultimate detection, pursuit—and this is a land of Law, swift and +fairly sure. No, the old man must die: only thus—thus surely, and thus +secretly—can the outraged dignity of Hasn-us-Sabah be appeased. On the +very next day he leaves the house—no more shall the mistrustful +baronet, who is "hiding something from him," see his face. He carries +with him a small parcel. Let me tell you what was in that parcel: it +contained the baronet's fur cap, one of his "brown gowns," and a +snow-white beard and wig. Of the cap we can be sure; for from the fact +that, on leaving his room at midnight to follow the Persian through the +<i>house</i>, he put it on his head, I gather that he wore it habitually +during all his waking hours; yet after Ul-Jabal has left him he wanders +<i>far and wide</i> "with uncovered head." Can you not picture the +distracted old man seeking ever and anon with absent mind for his +long-accustomed head-gear, and seeking in vain? Of the gown, too, we +may be equally certain: for it was the procuring of this that led +Ul-Jabal to the baronet's trunk; we now know that he did not go there +to <i>hide</i> the stone, for he had it not to hide; nor to <i>seek</i> it, for +he would be unable to believe the baronet childish enough to deposit it +in so obvious a place. As for the wig and beard, they had been +previously seen in his room. But before he leaves the house Ul-Jabal +has one more work to do: once more the two eat and drink together as in +"the old days of love"; once more the baronet is drunken with a deep +sleep, and when he wakes, his skin is "brown as the leaves of autumn." +That is the evidence of which I spake in the beginning as giving us a +hint of the exact shade of the Oriental's colour—it was the +yellowish-brown of a sered leaf. And now that the face of the baronet +has been smeared with this indelible pigment, all is ready for the +tragedy, and Ul-Jabal departs. He will return, but not immediately, for +he will at least give the eyes of his victim time to grow accustomed to +the change of colour in his face; nor will he tarry long, for there is +no telling whether, or whither, the stone may not disappear from that +outer pocket. I therefore surmise that the tragedy took place a day or +two ago. I remembered the feebleness of the old man, his highly +neurotic condition; I thought of those "fibrillary twitchings," +indicating the onset of a well-known nervous disorder sure to end in +sudden death; I recalled his belief that on account of the loss of the +stone, in which he felt his life bound up, the chariot of death was +urgent on his footsteps; I bore in mind his memory of his grandfather +dying in agony just seventy years ago after seeing his own wraith by +the churchyard-wall; I knew that such a man could not be struck by the +sudden, the terrific shock of seeing <i>himself</i> sitting in the chair +before the mirror (the chair, you remember, had been <i>placed</i> there by +Ul-Jabal) without dropping down stone dead on the spot. I was thus able +to predict the manner and place of the baronet's death—if he <i>be</i> +dead. Beside him, I said, would probably be found a white stone. For +Ul-Jabal, his ghastly impersonation ended, would hurry to the pocket, +snatch out the stone, and finding it not the stone he sought, would in +all likelihood dash it down, fly away from the corpse as if from +plague, and, I hope, straightway go and—hang himself.'</p> + +<p>It was at this point that the black mask of Ham framed itself between +the python-skin tapestries of the doorway. I tore from him the paper, +now two days old, which he held in his hand, and under the heading, +'Sudden death of a Baronet,' read a nearly exact account of the facts +which Zaleski had been detailing to me.</p> + +<p>'I can see by your face that I was not altogether at fault,' he said, +with one of his musical laughs; 'but there still remains for us to +discover whence Ul-Jabal obtained his two substitutes, his motive for +exchanging one for the other, and for stealing the valueless gem; but, +above all, we must find where the real stone was all the time that +these two men so sedulously sought it, and where it now is. Now, let us +turn our attention to this stone, and ask, first, what light does the +inscription on the cup throw on its nature? The inscription assures us +that if "this stone be stolen," or if it "chaunges dre," the House of +Saul and its head "anoon" (i.e. anon, at once) shall die. "Dre," I may +remind you, is an old English word, used, I think, by Burns, identical +with the Saxon "<i>dreogan</i>," meaning to "suffer." So that the writer at +least contemplated that the stone might "suffer changes." But what kind +of changes—external or internal? External change—change of +environment—is already provided for when he says, "shulde this Ston +stalen bee"; "chaunges," therefore, in <i>his</i> mind, meant internal +changes. But is such a thing possible for any precious stone, and for +this one in particular? As to that, we might answer when we know the +name of this one. It nowhere appears in the manuscript, and yet it is +immediately discoverable. For it was a "sky-blue" stone; a sky-blue, +sacred stone; a sky-blue, sacred, Persian stone. That at once gives us +its name—it was a <i>turquoise</i>. But can the turquoise, to the certain +knowledge of a mediaeval writer, "chaunges dre"? Let us turn for light +to old Anselm de Boot: that is he in pig-skin on the shelf behind the +bronze Hera.'</p> + +<p>I handed the volume to Zaleski. He pointed to a passage which read as +follows:</p> + +<p>'Assuredly the turquoise doth possess a soul more intelligent than that +of man. But we cannot be wholly sure of the presence of Angels in +precious stones. I do rather opine that the evil spirit doth take up +his abode therein, transforming himself into an angel of light, to the +end that we put our trust not in God, but in the precious stone; and +thus, perhaps, doth he deceive our spirits by the turquoise: for the +turquoise is of two sorts: those which keep their colour, and those +which lose it.'<a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> + +<blockquote> <p><a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a>'Assurément la turquoise a une âme plus intelligente que +l'âme de l'homme. Mais nous ne pouvons rien establir de certain +touchant la presence des Anges dans les pierres precieuses. Mon +jugement seroit plustot que le mauvais esprit, qui se transforme en +Ange de lumiere se loge dans les pierres precieuses, à fin que l'on ne +recoure pas à Dieu, mais que l'on repose sa creance dans la pierre +precieuse; ainsi, peut-être, il deçoit nos esprits par la turquoise: +car la turquoise est de deux sortes, les unes qui conservent leur +couleur et les autres qui la perdent.' <i>Anselm de Boot</i>, Book II.</p></blockquote> + +<p>'You thus see,' resumed Zaleski, 'that the turquoise was believed to +have the property of changing its colour—a change which was +universally supposed to indicate the fading away and death of its +owner. The good De Boot, alas, believed this to be a property of too +many other stones beside, like the Hebrews in respect of their urim and +thummim; but in the case of the turquoise, at least, it is a +well-authenticated natural phenomenon, and I have myself seen such a +specimen. In some cases the change is a gradual process; in others it +may occur suddenly within an hour, especially when the gem, long kept +in the dark, is exposed to brilliant sunshine. I should say, however, +that in this metamorphosis there is always an intermediate stage: the +stone first changes from blue to a pale colour spotted with brown, and, +lastly, to a pure white. Thus, Ul-Jabal having stolen the stone, finds +that it is of the wrong colour, and soon after replaces it; he supposes +that in the darkness he has selected the wrong chalice, and so takes +the valueless stone from the other. This, too, he replaces, and, +infinitely puzzled, makes yet another hopeless trial of the Edmundsbury +chalice, and, again baffled, again replaces it, concluding now that the +baronet has suspected his designs, and substituted a false stone for +the real one. But after this last replacement, the stone assumes its +final hue of white, and thus the baronet is led to think that two +stones have been substituted by Ul-Jabal for his own invaluable gem. +All this while the gem was lying serenely in its place in the chalice. +And thus it came to pass that in the Manor-house of Saul there arose a +somewhat considerable Ado about Nothing.'</p> + +<p>For a moment Zaleski paused; then, turning round and laying his hand on +the brown forehead of the mummy by his side, he said:</p> + +<p>'My friend here could tell you, and he would, a fine tale of the +immensely important part which jewels in all ages have played in human +history, human religions, institutions, ideas. He flourished some five +centuries before the Messiah, was a Memphian priest of Amsu, and, as +the hieroglyphics on his coffin assure me, a prime favourite with one +Queen Amyntas. Beneath these mouldering swaddlings of the grave a great +ruby still cherishes its blood-guilty secret on the forefinger of his +right hand. Most curious is it to reflect how in <i>all</i> lands, and at +<i>all</i> times, precious minerals have been endowed by men with mystic +virtues. The Persians, for instance, believed that spinelle and the +garnet were harbingers of joy. Have you read the ancient Bishop of +Rennes on the subject? Really, I almost think there must be some truth +in all this. The instinct of universal man is rarely far at fault. +Already you have a semi-comic "gold-cure" for alcoholism, and you have +heard of the geophagism of certain African tribes. What if the +scientist of the future be destined to discover that the diamond, and +it alone, is a specific for cholera, that powdered rubellite cures +fever, and the chryso-beryl gout? It would be in exact conformity with +what I have hitherto observed of a general trend towards a certain +inborn perverseness and whimsicality in Nature.'</p> + +<p><i>Note</i>.—As some proof of the fineness of intuition evidenced by +Zaleski, as distinct from his more conspicuous powers of reasoning, I +may here state that some years after the occurrence of the tragedy I +have recorded above, the skeleton of a man was discovered in the vaults +of the Manor-house of Saul. I have not the least doubt that it was the +skeleton of Ul-Jabal. The teeth were very prominent. A rotten rope was +found loosely knotted round the vertebrae of his neck.</p> + + + +<br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /> + +<a name="thess"></a><h2>THE S.S.</h2> + +<p>'Wohlgeborne, gesunde Kinder bringen viel mit....</p> + +<p>'Wenn die Natur verabscheut, so spricht sie es laut aus: das Geschöpf, +das falsch lebt, wird früh zerstört. Unfruchtbarkeit, kümmerliches +Dasein, frühzeitiges Zerfallen, das sind ihre Flüche, die Kennzeichen +ihrer Strenge.' GOETHE. [Footnote: 'Well-made, healthy children bring +much into the world along with them....</p> + +<p>'When Nature abhors, she speaks it aloud: the creature that lives with +a false life is soon destroyed. Unfruitfulness, painful existence, +early destruction, these are her curses, the tokens of her +displeasure.']</p> + +<p>[Greek: Argos de andron echaerothae outo, oste oi douloi auton eschon +panta ta praegmata, archontes te kai diepontes, es ho epaebaesan hoi +ton apolomenon paides.] HERODOTUS. [Footnote: 'And Argos was so +depleted of Men (i.e. <i>after the battle with Cleomenes</i>) that the +slaves usurped everything—ruling and disposing—until such time as the +sons of the slain were grown up.']</p> + +<p>To say that there are epidemics of suicide is to give expression to +what is now a mere commonplace of knowledge. And so far are they from +being of rare occurrence, that it has even been affirmed that every +sensational case of <i>felo de se</i> published in the newspapers is sure to +be followed by some others more obscure: their frequency, indeed, is +out of all proportion with the <i>extent</i> of each particular outbreak. +Sometimes, however, especially in villages and small townships, the +wildfire madness becomes an all-involving passion, emulating in its +fury the great plagues of history. Of such kind was the craze in +Versailles in 1793, when about a quarter of the whole population +perished by the scourge; while that at the <i>Hôtel des Invalides</i> in +Paris was only a notable one of the many which have occurred during the +present century. At such times it is as if the optic nerve of the mind +throughout whole communities became distorted, till in the noseless and +black-robed Reaper it discerned an angel of very loveliness. As a +brimming maiden, out-worn by her virginity, yields half-fainting to the +dear sick stress of her desire—with just such faintings, wanton fires, +does the soul, over-taxed by the continence of living, yield voluntary +to the grave, and adulterously make of Death its paramour.</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">'When she sees a bank</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">Her servants, what a pretty place it were</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">To bury lovers in; and make her maids</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.75em;">Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.'</span><br /> + +<p>[Footnote: Beaumont and Fletcher: <i>The Maid's Tragedy</i>.]</p> + +<p>The <i>mode</i> spreads—then rushes into rage: to breathe is to be +obsolete: to wear the shroud becomes <i>comme il faut</i>, this cerecloth +acquiring all the attractiveness and <i>éclat</i> of a wedding-garment. The +coffin is not too strait for lawless nuptial bed; and the sweet clods +of the valley will prove no barren bridegroom of a writhing progeny. +There is, however, nothing specially mysterious in the operation of a +pestilence of this nature: it is as conceivable, if not yet as +explicable, as the contagion of cholera, mind being at least as +sensitive to the touch of mind as body to that of body.</p> + +<p>It was during the ever-memorable outbreak of this obscure malady in the +year 1875 that I ventured to break in on the calm of that deep Silence +in which, as in a mantle, my friend Prince Zaleski had wrapped himself. +I wrote, in fact, to ask him what he thought of the epidemic. His +answer was in the laconic words addressed to the Master in the house of +woe at Bethany:</p> + +<p>'Come and see.'</p> + +<p>To this, however, he added in postscript: 'but what epidemic?'</p> + +<p>I had momentarily lost sight of the fact that Zaleski had so absolutely +cut himself off from the world, that he was not in the least likely to +know anything even of the appalling series of events to which I had +referred. And yet it is no exaggeration to say that those events had +thrown the greater part of Europe into a state of consternation, and +even confusion. In London, Manchester, Paris, and Berlin, especially +the excitement was intense. On the Sunday preceding the writing of my +note to Zaleski, I was present at a monster demonstration held in Hyde +Park, in which the Government was held up on all hands to the popular +derision and censure—for it will be remembered that to many minds the +mysterious accompaniments of some of the deaths daily occurring +conveyed a still darker significance than that implied in mere +self-destruction, and seemed to point to a succession of purposeless +and hideous murders. The demagogues, I must say, spoke with some +wildness and incoherence. Many laid the blame at the door of the +police, and urged that things would be different were they but placed +under municipal, instead of under imperial, control. A thousand +panaceas were invented, a thousand aimless censures passed. But the +people listened with vacant ear. Never have I seen the populace so +agitated, and yet so subdued, as with the sense of some impending doom. +The glittering eye betrayed the excitement, the pallor of the cheek the +doubt, the haunting <i>fear</i>. None felt himself quite safe; men +recognised shuddering the grin of death in the air. To tingle with +affright, and to know not why—that is the transcendentalism of terror. +The threat of the cannon's mouth is trivial in its effect on the mind +in comparison with the menace of a Shadow. It is the pestilence that +walketh <i>by night</i> that is intolerable. As for myself, I confess to +being pervaded with a nameless and numbing awe during all those weeks. +And this feeling appeared to be general in the land. The journals had +but one topic; the party organs threw politics to the winds. I heard +that on the Stock Exchange, as in the Paris <i>Bourse</i>, business +decreased to a minimum. In Parliament the work of law-threshing +practically ceased, and the time of Ministers was nightly spent in +answering volumes of angry 'Questions,' and in facing motion after +motion for the 'adjournment' of the House.</p> + +<p>It was in the midst of all this commotion that I received Prince +Zaleski's brief 'Come and see.' I was flattered and pleased: flattered, +because I suspected that to me alone, of all men, would such an +invitation, coming from him, be addressed; and pleased, because many a +time in the midst of the noisy city street and the garish, dusty world, +had the thought of that vast mansion, that dim and silent chamber, +flooded my mind with a drowsy sense of the romantic, till, from very +excess of melancholy sweetness in the picture, I was fain to close my +eyes. I avow that that lonesome room—gloomy in its lunar bath of soft +perfumed light—shrouded in the sullen voluptuousness of plushy, +narcotic-breathing draperies—pervaded by the mysterious spirit of its +brooding occupant—grew more and more on my fantasy, till the +remembrance had for me all the cool refreshment shed by a +midsummer-night's dream in the dewy deeps of some Perrhoebian grove of +cornel and lotos and ruby stars of the asphodel. It was, therefore, in +all haste that I set out to share for a time in the solitude of my +friend.</p> + +<p>Zaleski's reception of me was most cordial; immediately on my entrance +into his sanctum he broke into a perfect torrent of wild, enthusiastic +words, telling me with a kind of rapture, that he was just then +laboriously engaged in co-ordinating to one of the calculi certain new +properties he had discovered in the parabola, adding with infinite +gusto his 'firm' belief that the ancient Assyrians were acquainted with +all our modern notions respecting the parabola itself, the projection +of bodies in general, and of the heavenly bodies in particular; and +must, moreover, from certain inferences of his own in connection with +the Winged Circle, have been conversant with the fact that light is not +an ether, but only the vibration of an ether. He then galloped on to +suggest that I should at once take part with him in his investigations, +and commented on the timeliness of my visit. I, on my part, was anxious +for his opinion on other and far weightier matters than the concerns of +the Assyrians, and intimated as much to him. But for two days he was +firm in his tacit refusal to listen to my story; and, concluding that +he was disinclined to undergo the agony of unrest with which he was +always tormented by any mystery which momentarily baffled him, I was, +of course, forced to hold my peace. On the third day, however, of his +own accord he asked me to what epidemic I had referred. I then detailed +to him some of the strange events which were agitating the mind of the +outside world. From the very first he was interested: later on that +interest grew into a passion, a greedy soul-consuming quest after the +truth, the intensity of which was such at last as to move me even to +pity.</p> + +<p>I may as well here restate the facts as I communicated them to Zaleski. +The concatenation of incidents, it will be remembered, started with the +extraordinary death of that eminent man of science, Professor +Schleschinger, consulting laryngologist to the Charité Hospital in +Berlin. The professor, a man of great age, was on the point of +contracting his third marriage with the beautiful and accomplished +daughter of the Herr Geheimrath Otto von Friedrich. The contemplated +union, which was entirely one of those <i>mariages de convenance</i> so +common in good society, sprang out of the professor's ardent desire to +leave behind him a direct heir to his very considerable wealth. By his +first two marriages, indeed, he had had large families, and was at this +very time surrounded by quite an army of little grandchildren, from +whom (all his direct descendants being dead) he might have been content +to select his heir; but the old German prejudices in these matters are +strong, and he still hoped to be represented on his decease by a son of +his own. To this whim the charming Ottilie was marked by her parents as +the victim. The wedding, however, had been postponed owing to a slight +illness of the veteran scientist, and just as he was on the point of +final recovery from it, death intervened to prevent altogether the +execution of his design. Never did death of man create a profounder +sensation; <i>never was death of man followed by consequences more +terrible</i>. The <i>Residenz</i> of the scientist was a stately mansion near +the University in the <i>Unter den Linden</i> boulevard, that is to say, in +the most fashionable <i>Quartier</i> of Berlin. His bedroom from a +considerable height looked out on a small back garden, and in this room +he had been engaged in conversation with his colleague and medical +attendant, Dr. Johann Hofmeier, to a late hour of the night. During all +this time he seemed cheerful, and spoke quite lucidly on various +topics. In particular, he exhibited to his colleague a curious strip of +what looked like ancient papyrus, on which were traced certain +grotesque and apparently meaningless figures. This, he said, he had +found some days before on the bed of a poor woman in one of the +horribly low quarters that surround Berlin, on whom he had had occasion +to make a <i>post-mortem</i> examination. The woman had suffered from +partial paralysis. She had a small young family, none of whom, however, +could give any account of the slip, except one little girl, who +declared that she had taken it 'from her mother's mouth' after death. +The slip was soiled, and had a fragrant smell, as though it had been +smeared with honey. The professor added that all through his illness he +had been employing himself by examining these figures. He was +convinced, he said, that they contained some archaeological +significance; but, in any case, he ceased not to ask himself how came a +slip of papyrus to be found in such a situation,—on the bed of a dead +Berlinerin of the poorest class? The story of its being taken from the +<i>mouth</i> of the woman was, of course, unbelievable. The whole incident +seemed to puzzle, while it amused him; seemed to appeal to the +instinct—so strong in him—to investigate, to probe. For days, he +declared, he had been endeavouring, in vain, to make anything of the +figures. Dr. Hofmeier, too, examined the slip, but inclined to believe +that the figures—rude and uncouth as they were—were only such as +might be drawn by any school-boy in an idle moment. They consisted +merely of a man and a woman seated on a bench, with what looked like an +ornamental border running round them. After a pleasant evening's +scientific gossip, Dr. Hofmeier, a little after midnight, took his +departure from the bed-side. An hour later the servants were roused +from sleep by one deep, raucous cry proceeding from the professor's +room. They hastened to his door; it was locked on the inside; all was +still within. No answer coming to their calls, the door was broken in. +They found their master lying calm and dead on his bed. A window of the +room was open, but there was nothing to show that any one had entered +it. Dr. Hofmeier was sent for, and was soon on the scene. After +examining the body, he failed to find anything to account for the +sudden demise of his old friend and chief. One observation, however, +had the effect of causing him to tingle with horror. On his entrance he +had noticed, lying on the side of the bed, the piece of papyrus with +which the professor had been toying in the earlier part of the day, and +had removed it. But, as he was on the point of leaving the room, he +happened to approach the corpse once more, and bending over it, noticed +that the lips and teeth were slightly parted. Drawing open the now +stiffened jaws, he found—to his amazement, to his stupefaction—that, +neatly folded beneath the dead tongue, lay just such another piece of +papyrus as that which he had removed from the bed. He drew it out—it +was clammy. He put it to his nose,—it exhaled the fragrance of honey. +He opened it,—it was covered by figures. He compared them with the +figures on the other slip,—they were just so similar as two +draughtsmen hastily copying from a common model would make them. The +doctor was unnerved: he hurried homeward, and immediately submitted the +honey on the papyrus to a rigorous chemical analysis: he suspected +poison—a subtle poison—as the means of a suicide, grotesquely, +insanely accomplished. He found the fluid to be perfectly +innocuous,—pure honey, and nothing more.</p> + +<p>The next day Germany thrilled with the news that Professor +Schleschinger had destroyed himself. For suicide, however, some of the +papers substituted murder, though of neither was there an atom of +actual proof. On the day following, three persons died by their own +hands in Berlin, of whom two were young members of the medical +profession; on the day following that, the number rose to nineteen, +Hamburg, Dresden, and Aachen joining in the frenzied death-dance; +within three weeks from the night on which Professor Schleschinger met +his unaccountable end, eight thousand persons in Germany, France, and +Great Britain, died in that startlingly sudden and secret manner which +we call 'tragic', many of them obviously by their own hands, many, in +what seemed the servility of a fatal imitativeness, with figured, +honey-smeared slips of papyrus beneath their tongues. Even now—now, +after years—I thrill intensely to recall the dread remembrance; but to +live through it, to breathe daily the mawkish, miasmatic atmosphere, +all vapid with the suffocating death—ah, it was terror too deep, +nausea too foul, for mortal bearing. Novalis has somewhere hinted at +the possibility (or the desirability) of a simultaneous suicide and +voluntary return by the whole human family into the sweet bosom of our +ancient Father—I half expected it was coming, had come, <i>then</i>. It was +as if the old, good-easy, meek-eyed man of science, dying, had left his +effectual curse on all the world, and had thereby converted +civilisation into one omnivorous grave, one universal charnel-house. I +spent several days in reading out to Zaleski accounts of particular +deaths as they had occurred. He seemed never to tire of listening, +lying back for the most part on the silver-cushioned couch, and wearing +an inscrutable mask. Sometimes he rose and paced the carpet with +noiseless foot-fall, his steps increasing to the swaying, uneven +velocity of an animal in confinement as a passage here or there +attracted him, and then subsiding into their slow regularity again. At +any interruption in the reading, he would instantly turn to me with a +certain impatience, and implore me to proceed; and when our stock of +matter failed, he broke out into actual anger that I had not brought +more with me. Henceforth the negro, Ham, using my trap, daily took a +double journey—one before sunrise, and one at dusk—to the nearest +townlet, from which he would return loaded with newspapers. With +unimaginable eagerness did both Zaleski and I seize, morning after +morning, and evening after evening, on these budgets, to gloat for long +hours over the ever-lengthening tale of death. As for him, sleep +forsook him. He was a man of small reasonableness, scorning the +limitations of human capacity; his palate brooked no meat when his +brain was headlong in the chase; even the mild narcotics which were now +his food and drink seemed to lose something of their power to mollify, +to curb him. Often rising from slumber in what I took to be the dead of +night—though of day or night there could be small certainty in that +dim dwelling—I would peep into the domed chamber, and see him there +under the livid-green light of the censer, the leaden smoke issuing +from his lips, his eyes fixed unweariedly on a square piece of ebony +which rested on the coffin of the mummy near him. On this ebony he had +pasted side by side several woodcuts—snipped from the newspapers—of +the figures traced on the pieces of papyrus found in the mouths of the +dead. I could see, as time passed, that he was concentrating all his +powers on these figures; for the details of the deaths themselves were +all of a dreary sameness, offering few salient points for +investigation. In those cases where the suicide had left behind him +clear evidence of the means by which he had committed the act, there +was nothing to investigate; the others—rich and poor alike, peer and +peasant—trooped out by thousands on the far journey, without leaving +the faintest footprint to mark the road by which they had gone.</p> + +<p>This was perhaps the reason that, after a time, Zaleski discarded the +newspapers, leaving their perusal to me, and turned his attention +exclusively to the ebon tablet. Knowing as I full well did the daring +and success of his past spiritual adventures,—the subtlety, the +imagination, the imperial grip of his intellect,—I did not at all +doubt that his choice was wise, and would in the end be justified. +These woodcuts—now so notorious—were all exactly similar in design, +though minutely differing here and there in drawing. The following is a +facsimile of one of them taken by me at random:</p> + +<div align="center"><img src="images/ill.jpg" alt="woodcut" /> </div> +<p>The time passed. It now began to be a grief to me to see the turgid +pallor that gradually overspread the always ashen countenance of +Zaleski; I grew to consider the ravaging life that glared and blazed in +his sunken eye as too volcanic, demonic, to be canny: the mystery, I +decided at last—if mystery there were—was too deep, too dark, for +him. Hence perhaps it was, that I now absented myself more and more +from him in the adjoining room in which I slept. There one day I sat +reading over the latest list of horrors, when I heard a loud cry from +the vaulted chamber. I rushed to the door and beheld him standing, +gazing with wild eyes at the ebon tablet held straight out in front of +him.</p> + +<p>'By Heaven!' he cried, stamping savagely with his foot. 'By Heaven! +Then I certainly <i>am</i> a fool! <i>It is the staff of Phaebus in the hand +of Hermes!'</i></p> + +<p>I hastened to him. 'Tell me,' I said, 'have you discovered anything?'</p> + +<p>'It is possible.'</p> + +<p>'And has there really been foul play—murder—in any of these deaths?'</p> + +<p>'Of that, at least, I was certain from the first.'</p> + +<p>'Great God!' I exclaimed, 'could any son of man so convert himself into +a fiend, a beast of the wilderness....'</p> + +<p>'You judge precisely in the manner of the multitude,' he answered +somewhat petulantly. 'Illegal murder is always a mistake, but not +necessarily a crime. Remember Corday. But in cases where the murder of +one is really fiendish, why is it qualitatively less fiendish than the +murder of many? On the other hand, had Brutus slain a thousand +Caesars—each act involving an additional exhibition of the sublimest +self-suppression—he might well have taken rank as a saint in heaven.'</p> + +<p>Failing for the moment to see the drift or the connection of the +argument, I contented myself with waiting events. For the rest of that +day and the next Zaleski seemed to have dismissed the matter of the +tragedies from his mind, and entered calmly on his former studies. He +no longer consulted the news, or examined the figures on the tablet. +The papers, however, still arrived daily, and of these he soon +afterwards laid several before me, pointing, with a curious smile, to a +small paragraph in each. These all appeared in the advertisement +columns, were worded alike, and read as follows:</p> + +<p>'A true son of Lycurgus, <i>having news</i>, desires to know the <i>time</i> and +<i>place</i> of the next meeting of his Phyle. Address Zaleski, at R---- +Abbey, in the county of M----.'</p> + +<p>I gazed in mute alternation at the advertisement and at him. I may here +stop to make mention of a very remarkable sensation which my +association with him occasionally produced in me. I felt it with +intense, with unpleasant, with irritating keenness at this moment. It +was the sensation of being borne aloft—aloft—by a force external to +myself—such a sensation as might possibly tingle through an earthworm +when lifted into illimitable airy heights by the strongly-daring +pinions of an eagle. It was the feeling of being hurried out beyond +one's depth—caught and whiffed away by the all-compelling sweep of +some rabid vigour into a new, foreign element. Something akin I have +experienced in an 'express' as it raged with me—winged, rocking, +ecstatic, shrilling a dragon Aha!—round a too narrow curve. It was a +sensation very far from agreeable.</p> + +<p>'To that,' he said, pointing to the paragraph, 'we may, I think, +shortly expect an answer. Let us only hope that when it comes it may be +immediately intelligible.'</p> + +<p>We waited throughout the whole of that day and night, hiding our +eagerness under the pretence of absorption in our books. If by chance I +fell into an uneasy doze, I found him on waking ever watchful, and +poring over the great tome before him. About the time, however, when, +could we have seen it, the first grey of dawn must have been peeping +over the land, his impatience again became painful to witness; he rose +and paced the room, muttering occasionally to himself. This only +ceased, when, hours later, Ham entered the room with an envelope in his +hand. Zaleski seized it—tore it open—ran his eye over the +contents—and dashed it to the ground with an oath.</p> + +<p>'Curse it!' he groaned. 'Ah, curse it! unintelligible—every syllable +of it!'</p> + +<p>I picked up the missive and examined it. It was a slip of papyrus +covered with the design now so hideously familiar, except only that the +two central figures were wanting. At the bottom was written the date of +the 15th of November—it was then the morning of the 12th—and the name +'Morris.' The whole, therefore, presented the following appearance:</p> + +<div align="center"><img src="images/ill.jpg" alt="woodcut" /> + </div> + +<p>My eyes were now heavy with sleep, every sense half-drunken with the +vapourlike atmosphere of the room, so that, having abandoned something +of hope, I tottered willingly to my bed, and fell into a profound +slumber, which lasted till what must have been the time of the +gathering in of the shades of night. I then rose. Missing Zaleski, I +sought through all the chambers for him. He was nowhere to be seen. The +negro informed me with an affectionate and anxious tremor in the voice +that his master had left the rooms some hours before, but had said +nothing to him. I ordered the man to descend and look into the sacristy +of the small chapel wherein I had deposited my <i>calèche</i>, and in the +field behind, where my horse should be. He returned with the news that +both had disappeared. Zaleski, I then concluded, had undoubtedly +departed on a journey.</p> + +<p>I was deeply touched by the demeanour of Ham as the hours went by. He +wandered stealthily about the rooms like a lost being. It was like +matter sighing after, weeping over, spirit. Prince Zaleski had never +before withdrawn himself from the <i>surveillance</i> of this sturdy +watchman, and his disappearance now was like a convulsion in their +little cosmos. Ham implored me repeatedly, if I could, to throw some +light on the meaning of this catastrophe. But I too was in the dark. +The Titanic frame of the Ethiopian trembled with emotion as in broken, +childish words he told me that he felt instinctively the approach of +some great danger to the person of his master. So a day passed away, +and then another. On the next he roused me from sleep to hand me a +letter which, on opening, I found to be from Zaleski. It was hastily +scribbled in pencil, dated 'London, Nov. 14th,' and ran thus:</p> + +<p>'For my body—should I not return by Friday night—you will, no doubt, +be good enough to make search. <i>Descend</i> the river, keeping constantly +to the left; consult the papyrus; and stop at the <i>Descensus Aesopi.</i> +Seek diligently, and you will find. For the rest, you know my fancy for +cremation: take me, if you will, to the crematorium of <i>Père-Lachaise.</i> +My whole fortune I decree to Ham, the Lybian.'</p> + +<p>Ham was all for knowing the contents of this letter, but I refused to +communicate a word of it. I was dazed, I was more than ever perplexed, +I was appalled by the frenzy of Zaleski. Friday night! It was then +Thursday morning. And I was expected to wait through the dreary +interval uncertain, agonised, inactive! I was offended with my friend; +his conduct bore the interpretation of mental distraction. The leaden +hours passed all oppressively while I sought to appease the keenness of +my unrest with the anodyne of drugged sleep. On the next morning, +however, another letter—a rather massive one—reached me. The covering +was directed in the writing of Zaleski, but on it he had scribbled the +words: 'This need not be opened unless I fail to reappear before +Saturday.' I therefore laid the packet aside unread.</p> + +<p>I waited all through Friday, resolved that at six o'clock, if nothing +happened, I should make some sort of effort. But from six I remained, +with eyes strained towards the doorway, until ten. I was so utterly at +a loss, my ingenuity was so entirely baffled by the situation, that I +could devise no course of action which did not immediately appear +absurd. But at midnight I sprang up—no longer would I endure the +carking suspense. I seized a taper, and passed through the door-way. I +had not proceeded far, however, when my light was extinguished. Then I +remembered with a shudder that I should have to pass through the whole +vast length of the building in order to gain an exit. It was an all but +hopeless task in the profound darkness to thread my way through the +labyrinth of halls and corridors, of tumble-down stairs, of bat-haunted +vaults, of purposeless angles and involutions; but I proceeded with +something of a blind obstinacy, groping my way with arms held out +before me. In this manner I had wandered on for perhaps a quarter of an +hour, when my fingers came into distinct momentary contact with what +felt like cold and humid human flesh. I shrank back, unnerved as I +already was, with a murmur of affright.</p> + +<p>'Zaleski?' I whispered with bated breath.</p> + +<p>Intently as I strained my ears, I could detect no reply. The hairs of +my head, catching terror from my fancies, erected themselves.</p> + +<p>Again I advanced, and again I became aware of the sensation of contact. +With a quick movement I passed my hand upward and downward.</p> + +<p>It was indeed he. He was half-reclining, half-standing against a wall +of the chamber: that he was not dead, I at once knew by his uneasy +breathing. Indeed, when, having chafed his hands for some time, I tried +to rouse him, he quickly recovered himself, and muttered: 'I fainted; I +want sleep—only sleep.' I bore him back to the lighted room, assisted +by Ham in the latter part of the journey. Ham's ecstasies were +infinite; he had hardly hoped to see his master's face again. His +garments being wet and soiled, the negro divested him of them, and +dressed him in a tightly-fitting scarlet robe of Babylonish pattern, +reaching to the feet, but leaving the lower neck and forearm bare, and +girt round the stomach by a broad gold-orphreyed <i>ceinture</i>. With all +the tenderness of a woman, the man stretched his master thus arrayed on +the couch. Here he kept an Argus guard while Zaleski, in one deep +unbroken slumber of a night and a day, reposed before him. When at last +the sleeper woke, in his eye,—full of divine instinct,—flitted the +wonted falchion-flash of the whetted, two-edged intellect; the secret, +austere, self-conscious smile of triumph curved his lip; not a trace of +pain or fatigue remained. After a substantial meal on nuts, autumn +fruits, and wine of Samos, he resumed his place on the couch; and I sat +by his side to hear the story of his wandering. He said:</p> + +<p>'We have, Shiel, had before us a very remarkable series of murders, and +a very remarkable series of suicides. Were they in any way connected? +To this extent, I think—that the mysterious, the unparalleled nature +of the murders gave rise to a morbid condition in the public mind, +which in turn resulted in the epidemic of suicide. But though such an +epidemic has its origin in the instinct of imitation so common in men, +you must not suppose that the mental process is a <i>conscious</i> one. A +person feels an impulse to go and do, and is not aware that at bottom +it is only an impulse to go and do <i>likewise</i>. He would indeed +repudiate such an assumption. Thus one man destroys himself, and +another imitates him—but whereas the former uses a pistol, the latter +uses a rope. It is rather absurd, therefore, to imagine that in any of +those cases in which the slip of papyrus has been found in the mouth +after death, the cause of death has been the slavish imitativeness of +the suicidal mania,—for this, as I say, is never <i>slavish.</i> The +papyrus then—quite apart from the unmistakable evidences of suicide +invariably left by each self-destroyer—affords us definite and certain +means by which we can distinguish the two classes of deaths; and we are +thus able to divide the total number into two nearly equal halves.</p> + +<p>'But you start—you are troubled—you never heard or read of murder +such as this, the simultaneous murder of thousands over wide areas of +the face of the globe; here you feel is something outside your +experience, deeper than your profoundest imaginings. To the question +"by whom committed?" and "with what motive?" your mind can conceive no +possible answer. And yet the answer must be, "by man, and for human +motives,"—for the Angel of Death with flashing eye and flaming sword +is himself long dead; and again we can say at once, by no <i>one</i> man, +but by many, a cohort, an army of men; and again, by no <i>common</i> men, +but by men hellish (or heavenly) in cunning, in resource, in strength +and unity of purpose; men laughing to scorn the flimsy prophylactics of +society, separated by an infinity of self-confidence and spiritual +integrity from the ordinary easily-crushed criminal of our days.</p> + +<p>'This much at least I was able to discover from the first; and +immediately I set myself to the detection of motive by a careful study +of each case. This, too, in due time, became clear to me,—but to +motive it may perhaps be more convenient to refer later on. What next +engaged my attention was the figures on the papyrus, and devoutly did I +hope that by their solution I might be able to arrive at some more +exact knowledge of the mystery.</p> + +<p>'The figures round the border first attracted me, and the mere +<i>reading</i> of them gave me very little trouble. But I was convinced that +behind their meaning thus read lay some deep esoteric significance; and +this, almost to the last, I was utterly unable to fathom. You perceive +that these border figures consist of waved lines of two different +lengths, drawings of snakes, triangles looking like the Greek delta, +and a heart-shaped object with a dot following it. These succeed one +another in a certain definite order on all the slips. What, I asked +myself, were these drawings meant to represent,—letters, numbers, +things, or abstractions? This I was the more readily able to determine +because I have often, in thinking over the shape of the Roman letter S, +wondered whether it did not owe its convolute form to an attempt on the +part of its inventor to make a picture of the <i>serpent;</i> S being the +sibilant or hissing letter, and the serpent the hissing animal. This +view, I fancy (though I am not sure), has escaped the philologists, but +of course you know that all letters were originally <i>pictures of +things,</i> and of what was S a picture, if not of the serpent? I +therefore assumed, by way of trial, that the snakes in the diagram +stood for a sibilant letter, that is, either C or S. And thence, +supposing this to be the case, I deduced: firstly, that all the other +figures stood for letters; and secondly, that they all appeared in the +form of pictures of the things of which those letters were originally +meant to be pictures. Thus the letter "m," one of the four "<i>liquid</i>" +consonants, is, as we now write it, only a shortened form of a waved +line; and as a waved line it was originally written, and was the +character by which <i>a stream of running water</i> was represented in +writing; indeed it only owes its name to the fact that when the lips +are pressed together, and "m" uttered by a continuous effort, a certain +resemblance to the murmur of running water is produced. The longer +waved line in the diagram I therefore took to represent "m"; and it at +once followed that the shorter meant "n," for no two letters of the +commoner European alphabets differ only in length (as distinct from +shape) except "m" and "n", and "w" and "v"; indeed, just as the French +call "w" "double-ve," so very properly might "m" be called "double-en." +But, in this case, the longer not being "w," the shorter could not be +"v": it was therefore "n." And now there only remained the heart and +the triangle. I was unable to think of any letter that could ever have +been intended for the picture of a heart, but the triangle I knew to be +the letter #A.# This was originally written without the cross-bar from +prop to prop, and the two feet at the bottom of the props were not +separated as now, but joined; so that the letter formed a true +triangle. It was meant by the primitive man to be a picture of his +primitive house, this house being, of course, hut-shaped, and +consisting of a conical roof without walls. I had thus, with the +exception of the heart, disentangled the whole, which then (leaving a +space for the heart) read as follows:</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">{ ss</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.25em;">'mn { anan ... san.'</span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">{ cc</span><br /> + +<p>But 'c' before 'a' being never a sibilant (except in some few so-called +'Romance' languages), but a guttural, it was for the moment discarded; +also as no word begins with the letters 'mn'—except 'mnemonics' and +its fellows—I concluded that a vowel must be omitted between these +letters, and thence that all vowels (except 'a') were omitted; again, +as the double 's' can never come after 'n' I saw that either a vowel +was omitted between the two 's's,' or that the first word ended after +the first 's.' Thus I got</p> + +<p>'m ns sanan... san,'</p> + +<p>or, supplying the now quite obvious vowels,</p> + +<p>'mens sana in... sano.'</p> + +<p>The heart I now knew represented the word 'corpore,' the Latin word for +'heart' being 'cor,' and the dot—showing that the word as it stood was +an abbreviation—conclusively proved every one of my deductions.</p> + +<p>'So far all had gone flowingly. It was only when I came to consider the +central figures that for many days I spent my strength in vain. You +heard my exclamation of delight and astonishment when at last a ray of +light pierced the gloom. At no time, indeed, was I wholly in the dark +as to the <i>general</i> significance of these figures, for I saw at once +their resemblance to the sepulchral reliefs of classical times. In case +you are not minutely acquainted with the <i>technique</i> of these stones, I +may as well show you one, which I myself removed from an old grave in +Tarentum.'</p> + +<p>He took from a niche a small piece of close-grained marble, about a +foot square, and laid it before me. On one side it was exquisitely +sculptured in relief.</p> + +<p>'This,' he continued, 'is a typical example of the Greek grave-stone, +and having seen one specimen you may be said to have seen almost all, +for there is surprisingly little variety in the class. You will observe +that the scene represents a man reclining on a couch; in his hand he +holds a <i>patera,</i> or dish, filled with grapes and pomegranates, and +beside him is a tripod bearing the viands from which he is banqueting. +At his feet sits a woman—for the Greek lady never reclined at table. +In addition to these two figures a horse's head, a dog, or a serpent +may sometimes be seen; and these forms comprise the almost invariable +pattern of all grave reliefs. Now, that this was the real model from +which the figures on the papyrus were taken I could not doubt, when I +considered the seemingly absurd fidelity with which in each murder the +papyrus, smeared with honey, was placed under the tongue of the victim. +I said to myself: it can only be that the assassins have bound +themselves to the observance of a strict and narrow ritual from which +no departure is under any circumstances permitted—perhaps for the sake +of signalling the course of events to others at a distance. But what +ritual? That question I was able to answer when I knew the answer to +these others,—why <i>under the tongue,</i> and why <i>smeared with honey?</i> +For no reason, except that the Greeks (not the Romans till very late in +their history) always placed an <i>obolos,</i> or penny, beneath the tongue +of the dead to pay his passage across the Stygian river of ghosts; for +no reason, except that to these same Greeks honey was a sacred fluid, +intimately associated in their minds with the mournful subject of +Death; a fluid with which the bodies of the deceased were anointed, and +sometimes—especially in Sparta and the Pelasgic South—embalmed; with +which libations were poured to Hermes Psuchopompos, conductor of the +dead to the regions of shade; with which offerings were made to all the +chthonic deities, and the souls of the departed in general. You +remember, for instance, the melancholy words of Helen addressed to +Hermione in <i>Orestes:</i></p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.25em;">[Greek: <i>Kai labe choas tasd'en cheroin komas t'emas</i></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.25em;"><i>elthousa d'amphi ton Klutaimnaestras taphon</i></span><br /> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.25em;"><i>melikrat'aphes galaktos oinopon t'achnaen.</i>]</span><br /> + +<p>And so everywhere. The ritual then of the murderers was a <i>Greek</i> +ritual, their cult a Greek cult—preferably, perhaps, a South Greek +one, a Spartan one, for it was here that the highly conservative +peoples of that region clung longest and fondliest to this +semi-barbarous worship. This then being so, I was made all the more +certain of my conjecture that the central figures on the papyrus were +drawn from a Greek model.</p> + +<p>'Here, however, I came to a standstill. I was infinitely puzzled by the +rod in the man's hand. In none of the Greek grave-reliefs does any such +thing as a rod make an appearance, except in one well-known example +where the god Hermes—generally represented as carrying the <i>caduceus</i>, +or staff, given him by Phoebus—appears leading a dead maiden to the +land of night. But in every other example of which I am aware the +sculpture represents a man <i>living</i>, not dead, banqueting <i>on earth</i>, +not in Hades, by the side of his living companion. What then could be +the significance of the staff in the hand of this living man? It was +only after days of the hardest struggle, the cruellest suspense, that +the thought flashed on me that the idea of Hermes leading away the dead +female might, in this case, have been carried one step farther; that +the male figure might be no living man, no man at all, but <i>Hermes +himself</i> actually banqueting in Hades with the soul of his disembodied +<i>protégée</i>! The thought filled me with a rapture I cannot describe, and +you witnessed my excitement. But, at all events, I saw that this was a +truly tremendous departure from Greek art and thought, to which in +general the copyists seemed to cling so religiously. There must +therefore be a reason, a strong reason, for vandalism such as this. And +that, at any rate, it was no longer difficult to discover; for now I +knew that the male figure was no mortal, but a god, a spirit, a DAEMON +(in the Greek sense of the word); and the female figure I saw by the +marked shortness of her drapery to be no Athenian, but a Spartan; no +matron either, but a maiden, a lass, a LASSIE; and now I had forced on +me lassie daemon, <i>Lacedaemon.</i></p> + +<p>'This then was the badge, the so carefully-buried badge, of this +society of men. The only thing which still puzzled and confounded me at +this stage was the startling circumstance that a <i>Greek</i> society should +make use of a <i>Latin</i> motto. It was clear that either all my +conclusions were totally wrong, or else the motto <i>mens sana in corpore +sano</i> contained wrapped up in itself some acroamatic meaning which I +found myself unable to penetrate, and which the authors had found no +Greek motto capable of conveying. But at any rate, having found this +much, my knowledge led me of itself one step further; for I perceived +that, widely extended as were their operations, the society was +necessarily in the main an <i>English,</i> or at least an English-speaking +one—for of this the word "lassie" was plainly indicative: it was easy +now to conjecture London, the monster-city in which all things lose +themselves, as their head-quarters; and at this point in my +investigations I despatched to the papers the advertisement you have +seen.'</p> + +<p>'But,' I exclaimed, 'even now I utterly fail to see by what mysterious +processes of thought you arrived at the wording of the advertisement; +even now it conveys no meaning to my mind.'</p> + +<p>'That,' he replied,' will grow clear when we come to a right +understanding of the baleful <i>motive</i> which inspired these men. I have +already said that I was not long in discovering it. There was only one +possible method of doing so—and that was, by all means, by any means, +to find out some condition or other common to every one of the victims +before death. It is true that I was unable to do this in some few +cases, but where I failed, I was convinced that my failure was due to +the insufficiency of the evidence at my disposal, rather than to the +actual absence of the condition. Now, let us take almost any two cases +you will, and seek for this common condition: let us take, for example, +the first two that attracted the attention of the world—the poor woman +of the slums of Berlin, and the celebrated man of science. Separated by +as wide an interval as they are, we shall yet find, if we look closely, +in each case the same pathetic tokens of the still uneliminated +<i>striae</i> of our poor humanity. The woman is not an old woman, for she +has a "small young" family, which, had she lived, might have been +increased: notwithstanding which, she has suffered from hemiplegia, +"partial paralysis." The professor, too, has had not one, but two, +large families, and an "army of grand-children": but note well the +startling, the hideous fact, that <i>every one of his children is dead!</i> +The crude grave has gaped before the cock to suck in <i>every one</i> of +those shrunk forms, so indigent of vital impulse, so pauper of civism, +lust, so draughty, so vague, so lean—but not before they have had time +to dower with the ah and wo of their infirmity a whole wretched "army +of grand-children." And yet this man of wisdom is on the point, in his +old age, of marrying once again, of producing for the good of his race +still more of this poor human stuff. You see the lurid significance, +the point of resemblance,—you see it? And, O heaven, is it not too +sad? For me, I tell you, the whole business has a tragic pitifulness +too deep for words. But this brings me to the discussion of a large +matter. It would, for instance, be interesting to me to hear what you, +a modern European, saturated with all the notions of your little day, +what <i>you</i> consider the supreme, the all-important question for the +nations of Europe at this moment. Am I far wrong in assuming that you +would rattle off half a dozen of the moot points agitating rival +factions in your own land, select one of them, and call that "the +question of the hour"? I wish I could see as you see; I wish to God I +did not see deeper. In order to lead you to my point, what, let me ask +you, what <i>precisely</i> was it that ruined the old nations—that brought, +say Rome, to her knees at last? Centralisation, you say, top-heavy +imperialism, dilettante pessimism, the love of luxury. At bottom, +believe me, it was not one of these high-sounding things—it was simply +War; the sum total of the battles of centuries. But let me explain +myself: this is a novel view to you, and you are perhaps unable to +conceive how or why war was so fatal to the old world, because you see +how little harmful it is to the new. If you collected in a promiscuous +way a few millions of modern Englishmen and slew them all +simultaneously, what, think you, would be the effect from the point of +view of the State? The effect, I conceive, would be indefinitely small, +wonderfully transitory; there would, of course, be a momentary lacuna +in the boiling surge: yet the womb of humanity is full of sap, and +uberant; Ocean-tide, wooed of that Ilithyia whose breasts are many, +would flow on, and the void would soon be filled. But the effect would +only be thus insignificant, if, as I said, your millions were taken +promiscuously (as in the modern army), not if they were <i>picked</i> +men----in <i>that</i> case the loss (or gain) would be excessive, and +permanent for all time. Now, the war-hosts of the ancient +commonwealths—not dependent on the mechanical contrivances of the +modern army—were necessarily composed of the very best men: the +strong-boned, the heart-stout, the sound in wind and limb. Under these +conditions the State shuddered through all her frame, thrilled adown +every filament, at the death of a single one of her sons in the field. +As only the feeble, the aged, bided at home, their number after each +battle became larger <i>in proportion to the whole</i> than before. Thus the +nation, more and more, with ever-increasing rapidity, declined in +bodily, and of course spiritual, quality, until the <i>end</i> was reached, +and Nature swallowed up the weaklings whole; and thus war, which to the +modern state is at worst the blockhead and indecent <i>affaires +d'honneur</i> of persons in office—and which, surely, before you and I +die will cease altogether—was to the ancient a genuine and +remorselessly fatal scourge.</p> + +<p>'And now let me apply these facts to the Europe of our own time. We no +longer have world-serious war—but in its place we have a scourge, the +effect of which on the modern state is <i>precisely the same</i> as the +effect of war on the ancient, only,—in the end,—far more destructive, +far more subtle, sure, horrible, disgusting. The name of this +pestilence is Medical Science. Yes, it is most true, shudder +—shudder—as you will! Man's best friend turns to an asp in his +bosom to sting him to the basest of deaths. The devastating growth of +medical, and especially surgical, science—that, if you like, for us +all, is "the question of the hour!" And what a question! of what +surpassing importance, in the presence of which all other "questions" +whatever dwindle into mere academic triviality. For just as the ancient +State was wounded to the heart through the death of her healthy sons in +the field, just so slowly, just so silently, is the modern receiving +deadly hurt by the botching and tinkering of her unhealthy children. +The net result is in each case the same—the altered ratio of the total +amount of reproductive health to the total amount of reproductive +disease. They recklessly spent their best; we sedulously conserve our +worst; and as they pined and died of anaemia, so we, unless we repent, +must perish in a paroxysm of black-blood apoplexy. And this prospect +becomes more certain, when you reflect that the physician as we know +him is not, like other men and things, a being of gradual growth, of +slow evolution: from Adam to the middle of the last century the world +saw nothing even in the least resembling him. No son of Paian <i>he</i>, but +a fatherless, full-grown birth from the incessant matrix of Modern +Time, so motherly of monstrous litters of "Gorgon and Hydra and +Chimaeras dire"; you will understand what I mean when you consider the +quite recent date of, say, the introduction of anaesthetics or +antiseptics, the discovery of the knee-jerk, bacteriology, or even of +such a doctrine as the circulation of the blood. We are at this very +time, if I mistake not, on the verge of new insights which will enable +man to laugh at disease—laugh at it in the sense of over-ruling its +natural tendency to produce death, not by any means in the sense of +destroying its ever-expanding <i>existence</i>. Do you know that at this +moment your hospitals are crammed with beings in human likeness +suffering from a thousand obscure and subtly-ineradicable ills, all of +whom, if left alone, would die almost at once, but ninety in the +hundred of whom will, as it is, be sent forth "cured," like +missionaries of hell, and the horrent shapes of Night and Acheron, to +mingle in the pure river of humanity the poison-taint of their protean +vileness? Do you know that in your schools one-quarter of the children +are already purblind? Have you gauged the importance of your tremendous +consumption of quack catholicons, of the fortunes derived from their +sale, of the spread of modern nervous disorders, of toothless youth and +thrice loathsome age among the helot-classes? Do you know that in the +course of my late journey to London, I walked from Piccadilly Circus to +Hyde Park Corner, during which time I observed some five hundred +people, of whom twenty-seven only were perfectly healthy, well-formed +men, and eighteen healthy, beautiful women? On every hand—with a +thrill of intensest joy, I say it!—is to be seen, if not yet +commencing civilisation, then progress, progress—wide as the +world—toward it: only here—at the heart—is there decadence, fatty +degeneration. Brain-evolution—and favouring airs—and the ripening +time—and the silent Will of God, of God—all these in conspiracy seem +to be behind, urging the whole ship's company of us to some undreamable +luxury of glory—when lo, this check, artificial, evitable. Less death, +more disease—that is the sad, the unnatural record; children +especially—so sensitive to the physician's art—living on by hundreds +of thousands, bearing within them the germs of wide-spreading sorrow, +who in former times would have died. And if you consider that the +proper function of the doctor is the strictly limited one of curing the +curable, rather than of self-gloriously perpetuating the incurable, you +may find it difficult to give a quite rational answer to this simple +question: <i>why?</i> Nothing is so sure as that to the unit it is a +cruelty; nothing so certain as that to humanity it is a wrong; to say +that such and such an one was sent by the All Wise, and must +<i>therefore</i> be not merely permitted, but elaborately coaxed and forced, +to live, is to utter a blasphemy against Man at which even the ribald +tongue of a priest might falter; and as a matter of fact, society, in +just contempt for this species of argument, never hesitates to hang, +for its own imagined good, its heaven-sent catholics, protestants, +sheep, sheep-stealers, etc. What then, you ask, would I do with these +unholy ones? To save the State would I pierce them with a sword, or +leave them to the slow throes of their agonies? Ah, do not expect me to +answer that question—I do not know what to answer. The whole spirit of +the present is one of a broad and beautiful, if quite thoughtless, +humanism, and I, a child of the present, cannot but be borne along by +it, coerced into sympathy with it. "Beautiful" I say: for if anywhere +in the world you have seen a sight more beautiful than a group of +hospital <i>savants</i> bending with endless scrupulousness over a little +pauper child, concentering upon its frailty the whole human skill and +wisdom of ages, so have not I. Here have you the full realisation of a +parable diviner than that of the man who went down from Jerusalem to +Jericho. Beautiful then; with at least surface beauty, like the serpent +<i>lachesis mutus</i>; but, like many beautiful things, deadly too, +<i>in</i>human. And, on the whole, an answer will have to be found. As for +me, it is a doubt which has often agitated me, whether the central +dogma of Judaism and Christianity alike can, after all, be really one +of the inner verities of this our earthly being—the dogma, that by the +shedding of the innocent blood, and by that alone, shall the race of +man find cleansing and salvation. Will no agony of reluctance overcome +the necessity that one man die, "so that the whole people perish not"? +Can it be true that by nothing less than the "three days of pestilence" +shall the land be purged of its stain, and is this old divine +alternative about to confront us in new, modern form? Does the +inscrutable Artemis indeed demand offerings of human blood to suage her +anger? Most sad that man should ever need, should ever have needed, to +foul his hand in the [Greek: musaron aima] of his own veins! But what +is, is. And can it be fated that the most advanced civilisation of the +future shall needs have in it, as the first and chief element of its +glory, the most barbarous of all the rituals of barbarism—the +immolation of hecatombs which wail a muling human wail? Is it indeed +part of man's strange destiny through the deeps of Time that he one day +bow his back to the duty of pruning himself as a garden, so that he run +not to a waste wilderness? Shall the physician, the <i>accoucheur,</i> of +the time to come be expected, and commanded, to do on the ephod and +breast-plate, anoint his head with the oil of gladness, and add to the +function of healer the function of Sacrificial Priest? These you say, +are wild, dark questions. Wild enough, dark enough. We know how +Sparta—the "man-taming Sparta" Simonides calls her—answered them. +Here was the complete subordination of all unit-life to the well-being +of the Whole. The child, immediately on his entry into the world, fell +under the control of the State: it was not left to the judgment of his +parents, as elsewhere, whether he should be brought up or not, but a +commission of the Phyle in which he was born decided the question. If +he was weakly, if he had any bodily unsightliness, he was exposed on a +place called Taygetus, and so perished. It was a consequence of this +that never did the sun in his course light on man half so godly +stalwart, on woman half so houri-lovely, as in stern and stout old +Sparta. Death, like all mortal, they must bear; disease, once and for +all, they were resolved to have done with. The word which they used to +express the idea "ugly," meant also "hateful," "vile," "disgraceful" +—and I need hardly point out to you the significance of that +fact alone; for they considered—and rightly—that there is no +sort of natural reason why every denizen of earth should not be +perfectly hale, integral, sane, beautiful—if only very moderate pains +be taken to procure this divine result. One fellow, indeed, called +Nancleidas, grew a little too fat to please the sensitive eyes of the +Spartans: I believe he was periodically whipped. Under a system so very +barbarous, the super-sweet, egoistic voice of the club-footed poet +Byron would, of course, never have been heard: one brief egoistic +"lament" on Taygetus, and so an end. It is not, however, certain that +the world could not have managed very well without Lord Byron. The one +thing that admits of no contradiction is that it cannot manage without +the holy citizen, and that disease, to men and to nations, can have but +one meaning, annihilation near or ultimate. At any rate, from these +remarks, you will now very likely be able to arrive at some +understanding of the wording of the advertisements which I sent to the +papers.'</p> + +<p>Zaleski, having delivered himself of this singular <i>tirade</i>, paused: +replaced the sepulchral relief in its niche: drew a drapery of silver +cloth over his bare feet and the hem of his antique garment of Babylon: +and then continued:</p> + +<p>'After some time the answer to the advertisement at length arrived; but +what was my disgust to find that it was perfectly unintelligible to me. +I had asked for a date and an address: the reply came giving a date, +and an address, too—but an address wrapped up in cypher, which, of +course, I, as a supposed member of the society, was expected to be able +to read. At any rate, I now knew the significance of the incongruous +circumstance that the Latin proverb <i>mens sana etc.</i> should be adopted +as the motto of a Greek society; the significance lay in this, that the +motto <i>contained an address</i>—the address of their meeting-place, or at +least, of their chief meeting-place. I was now confronted with the task +of solving—and of solving quickly, without the loss of an hour—this +enigma; and I confess that it was only by the most violent and +extraordinary concentration of what I may call the dissecting faculty, +that I was able to do so in good time. And yet there was no special +difficulty in the matter. For looking at the motto as it stood in +cypher, the first thing I perceived was that, in order to read the +secret, the heart-shaped figure must be left out of consideration, if +there was any <i>consistency</i> in the system of cyphers at all, for it +belonged to a class of symbols quite distinct from that of all the +others, not being, like them, a picture-letter. Omitting this, +therefore, and taking all the other vowels and consonants whether +actually represented in the device or not, I now got the proverb in the +form <i>mens sana in ... pore sano.</i> I wrote this down, and what +instantly struck me was the immense, the altogether unusual, number of +<i>liquids</i> in the motto—six in all, amounting to no less than one-third +of the total number of letters! Putting these all together you get +<i>mnnnnr</i>, and you can see that the very appearance of the "m's" and +"n's" (especially when <i>written</i>) running into one another, of itself +suggests a stream of water. Having previously arrived at the conclusion +of London as the meeting-place, I could not now fail to go on to the +inference of <i>the Thames</i>; there, or near there, would I find those +whom I sought. The letters "mnnnnr," then, meant the Thames: what did +the still remaining letters mean? I now took these remaining letters, +placing them side by side: I got aaa, sss, ee, oo, p and i. Juxtaposing +these nearly in the order indicated by the frequency of their +occurrence, and their place in the Roman alphabet, you at once and +inevitably get the word <i>Aesopi.</i> And now I was fairly startled by this +symmetrical proof of the exactness of my own deductions in other +respects, but, above all, far above all, by the occurrence of that word +<i>"Aesopi."</i> For who was Aesopus? He was a slave who was freed for his +wise and witful sallies: he is therefore typical of the liberty of the +wise—their moral manumission from temporary and narrow law; he was +also a close friend of Croesus: he is typical, then, of the union of +wisdom with wealth—true wisdom with real wealth; lastly, and above +all, he was thrown by the Delphians from a rock on account of his wit: +he is typical, therefore, of death—the shedding of blood—as a result +of wisdom, this thought being an elaboration of Solomon's great maxim, +"in much wisdom is much sorrow." But how accurately all this fitted in +with what would naturally be the doctrines of the men on whose track I +was! I could no longer doubt the justness of my reasonings, and +immediately, while you slept, I set off for London.</p> + +<p>'Of my haps in London I need not give you a very particular account. +The meeting was to be held on the 15th, and by the morning of the 13th +I had reached a place called Wargrave, on the Thames. There I hired a +light canoe, and thence proceeded down the river in a somewhat zig-zag +manner, narrowly examining the banks on either side, and keeping a +sharp out-look for some board, or sign, or house, that would seem to +betoken any sort of connection with the word "Aesopi." In this way I +passed a fruitless day, and having reached the shipping region, made +fast my craft, and in a spirit of <i>diablerie</i> spent the night in a +common lodging-house, in the company of the most remarkable human +beings, characterised by an odour of alcohol, and a certain obtrusive +<i>bonne camaraderie</i> which the prevailing fear of death could not +altogether repress. By dawn of the 14th I was on my journey again—on, +and ever on. Eagerly I longed for a sight of the word I sought: but I +had misjudged the men against whose cunning I had measured my own. I +should have remembered more consistently that they were no ordinary +men. As I was destined to find, there lay a deeper, more cabalistic +meaning in the motto than any I had been able to dream of. I had +proceeded on my pilgrimage down the river a long way past Greenwich, +and had now reached a desolate and level reach of land stretching away +on either hand. Paddling my boat from the right to the left bank, I +came to a spot where a little arm of the river ran up some few yards +into the land. The place wore a specially dreary and deserted aspect: +the land was flat, and covered with low shrubs. I rowed into this arm +of shallow water and rested on my oar, wearily bethinking myself what +was next to be done. Looking round, however, I saw to my surprise that +at the end of this arm there was a short narrow pathway—a winding +road—leading from the river-bank. I stood up in the boat and followed +its course with my eyes. It was met by another road also winding among +the bushes, but in a slightly different direction. At the end of this +was a little, low, high-roofed, round house, without doors or windows. +And then—and then—tingling now with a thousand raptures—I beheld a +pool of water near this structure, and then another low house, a +counterpart of the first—and then, still leading on in the same +direction, another pool—and then a great rock, heart-shaped—and then +another winding road—and then another pool of water. All was a +model—<i>exact to the minutest particular</i>—of the device on the +papyrus! The first long-waved line was the river itself; the three +short-waved lines were the arm of the river and the two pools; the +three snakes were the three winding roads; the two triangles +representing the letter #A# were the two high-roofed round houses; the +heart was the rock! I sprang, now thoroughly excited, from the boat, +and ran in headlong haste to the end of the last lake. Here there was a +rather thick and high growth of bushes, but peering among them, my eye +at once caught a white oblong board supported on a stake: on this, in +black letters, was marked the words, "DESCENSUS AESOPI." It was +necessary, therefore, to go <i>down</i>: the meeting-place was subterranean. +It was without difficulty that I discovered a small opening in the +ground, half hidden by the underwood; from the orifice I found that a +series of wooden steps led directly downwards, and I at once boldly +descended. No sooner, however, had I touched the bottom than I was +confronted by an ancient man in Hellenic apparel, armed with the Greek +<i>ziphos</i> and <i>peltè</i>. His eyes, accustomed to the gloom, pierced me +long with an earnest scrutiny.</p> + +<p>'"You are a Spartan?" he asked at length.</p> + +<p>'"Yes," I answered promptly.</p> + +<p>'"Then how is it you do not know that I am stone deaf?"</p> + +<p>'I shrugged, indicating that for the moment I had forgotten the fact.</p> + +<p>'"You <i>are</i> a Spartan?" he repeated.</p> + +<p>'I nodded with emphasis.</p> + +<p>'"Then, how is it you omit to make the sign?"</p> + +<p>'Now, you must not suppose that at this point I was nonplussed, for in +that case you would not give due weight to the strange inherent power +of the mind to rise to the occasion of a sudden emergency—to stretch +itself long to the length of an event; I do not hesitate to say that +<i>no</i> combination of circumstances can defeat a vigorous brain fully +alert, and in possession of itself. With a quickness to which the +lightning-flash is tardy, I remembered that this was a spot indicated +by the symbols on the papyrus: I remembered that this same papyrus was +always placed under the <i>tongue</i> of the dead; I remembered, too, that +among that very nation whose language had afforded the motto, to "turn +up the <i>thumb</i>" (<i>pollicem vertere</i>) was a symbol significant of death. +I touched the under surface of my tongue with the tip of my thumb. The +aged man was appeased. I passed on, and examined the place.</p> + +<p>'It was simply a vast circular hall, the arched roof of which was +supported on colonnades of what I took to be pillars of porphyry. Down +the middle and round the sides ran tables of the same material; the +walls were clothed in hangings of sable velvet, on which, in infinite +reproduction, was embroidered in cypher the motto of the society. The +chairs were cushioned in the same stuff. Near the centre of the circle +stood a huge statue, of what really seemed to me to be pure beaten +gold. On the great ebon base was inscribed the word [Greek: LUKURGOS]. +From the roof swung by brazen chains a single misty lamp.</p> + +<p>'Having seen this much I reascended to the land of light, and being +fully resolved on attending the meeting on the next day or night, and +not knowing what my fate might then be, I wrote to inform you of the +means by which my body might be traced. 'But on the next day a new +thought occurred to me: I reasoned thus: "these men are not common +assassins; they wage a too rash warfare against diseased life, but not +against life in general. In all probability they have a quite +immoderate, quite morbid reverence for the sanctity of healthy life. +They will not therefore take mine, <i>unless</i> they suppose me to be the +only living outsider who has a knowledge of their secret, and therefore +think it absolutely necessary for the carrying out of their beneficent +designs that my life should be sacrificed. I will therefore prevent +such a motive from occurring to them by communicating to another their +whole secret, and—if the necessity should arise—<i>letting them know</i> +that I have done so, without telling them who that other is. Thus my +life will be assured." I therefore wrote to you on that day a full +account of all I had discovered, giving you to understand, however, on +the envelope, that you need not examine the contents for some little +time.</p> + +<p>'I waited in the subterranean vault during the greater part of the next +day; but not till midnight did the confederates gather. What happened +at that meeting I shall not disclose, even to you. All was +sacred—solemn—full of awe. Of the choral hymns there sung, the +hierophantic ritual, liturgies, paeans, the gorgeous symbolisms—of the +wealth there represented, the culture, art, self-sacrifice—of the +mingling of all the tongues of Europe—I shall not speak; nor shall I +repeat names which you would at once recognise as familiar to +you—though I may, perhaps, mention that the "Morris," whose name +appears on the papyrus sent to me is a well-known <i>littérateur</i> of that +name. But this in confidence, for some years at least.</p> + +<p>'Let me, however, hurry to a conclusion. My turn came to speak. I rose +undaunted, and calmly disclosed myself; during the moment of hush, of +wide-eyed paralysis that ensued, I declared that fully as I coincided +with their views in general, I found myself unable to regard their +methods with approval—these I could not but consider too rash, too +harsh, too premature. My voice was suddenly drowned by one universal, +earth-shaking roar of rage and contempt, during which I was surrounded +on all sides, seized, pinioned, and dashed on the central table. All +this time, in the hope and love of life, I passionately shouted that I +was not the only living being who shared in their secret. But my voice +was drowned, and drowned again, in the whirling tumult. None heard me. +A powerful and little-known anaesthetic—the means by which all their +murders have been accomplished—was now produced. A cloth, saturated +with the fluid, was placed on my mouth and nostrils. I was stifled. +Sense failed. The incubus of the universe blackened down upon my brain. +How I tugged at the mandrakes of speech! was a locked pugilist with +language! In the depth of my extremity the half-thought, I remember, +floated, like a mist, through my fading consciousness, that now +perhaps—now—there was silence around me; that <i>now,</i> could my palsied +lips find dialect, I should be heard, and understood. My whole soul +rose focussed to the effort—my body jerked itself upwards. At that +moment I knew my spirit truly great, genuinely sublime. For I <i>did</i> +utter something—my dead and shuddering tongue <i>did</i> babble forth some +coherency. Then I fell back, and all was once more the ancient Dark. On +the next day when I woke, I was lying on my back in my little boat, +placed there by God knows whose hands. At all events, one thing was +clear—I <i>had</i> uttered something—I was saved. With what of strength +remained to me I reached the place where I had left your <i>calèche</i>, and +started on my homeward way. The necessity to sleep was strong upon me, +for the fumes of the anaesthetic still clung about my brain; hence, +after my long journey, I fainted on my passage through the house, and +in this condition you found me.</p> + +<p>'Such then is the history of my thinkings and doings in connection with +this ill-advised confraternity: and now that their cabala is known to +others—to how many others <i>they</i> cannot guess—I think it is not +unlikely that we shall hear little more of the Society of Sparta.'</p> + +<p>THE END</p> + + + +<br /><hr style="width: 35%;" /><br /> + +</td></tr></table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Prince Zaleski, by M.P. 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