623-36-4798

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

CHAPTER XX.
HUGH OF ROOSELAARE
Dirk took off his riding-coat and listened with a smile to the quick step of Theirry overhead; he was again in the long low chamber looking out on the witch’s garden, and nothing was changed save that the roses bloomed no longer on the bare thorny bushes.

“So you have brought him back,” said Nathalie, caressing the youth’s soft sleeve; “pulled his saint out of her shrine and given her over to the demons.”

Dirk turned his head; a beautiful look was in his eyes.

“Yea, I have brought him back,” he said musingly.

“You have done a foolish thing,” grumbled the witch, “he will ruin you yet; beware, for even now you hold him against his will; I marked his face as he went into his old chamber.”

Dirk seated himself with a sigh.

“In this matter I am not to be moved, and now some food, for I am so weary that I can scarcely think. Nathalie, the toil it has been, the rough roads, the delays, the long hours in the saddle—but it was worth it!”

The witch set the table with a rich service of ivory and silver.

“Worth leaving your fortunes at the crisis? Ye left Frankfort the day after the Emperor died, and have been away two months. Ysabeau thinks you dead.”

Dirk frowned.

“No matter, to-morrow she shall know me living. Martzburg is far away and the weather delayed us, but it had to be; now I am free to work my own advancement.”

He drank eagerly of the wine put before him, and began to eat.

“Ye have heard,” asked Nathalie, “that Balthasar of Courtrai has been elected Emperor?”

“Yea,” smiled Dirk, “and is to marry Ysabeau within the year; we knew it, did we not?”

“Next spring they go to Rome to receive the Imperial crown.”

“I shall be with them,” said Dirk. “Well, it is good to rest. What a thick fool Balthasar is!”

He smiled, and his eyes sparkled.

“The Empress is a clever woman,” answered the witch, “she came here once to know whither you had gone. I told her, for the jest, that you were dead. At that she must think her secret dead with you, yet she gave no sign of joy nor relief, nor any hint of what her business was.”

Dirk elegantly poured out more wine.

“She is never betrayed by her puppet’s face—an iron-hearted fiend, the Empress.”

“They say, though, that she is a fool for Balthasar, a dog at his heels.”

“Until she change.”

“Belike you will be her next fancy,” said Nathalie; “the crystals always foretell a throne for you.”

Dirk laughed.

“I do not mean to share my honours with any—woman,” he answered; “pile up the fire, Nathalie, certes, it is cold.”

He pushed back his chair with a half sigh on his lips, and turned contented eyes on the glowing hearth Nathalie replenished.

“And none has thought evil of Melchoir’s death?” he asked curiously.

The witch returned to her little stool and rubbed her hands together; the leaping firelight cast a false colour over her face.

“Ay, there was Hugh of Rooselaare.”

Dirk sat up.

“The Lord of Rooselaare?”

“Certes, the night Melchoir died he flung ‘Murderess!’ in the Empress’s face.”

Dirk showed a grave, alert face.

“I never heard of that.”

“Nay,” answered the witch with some malice, “ye were too well engaged in parting that boy from his love—it is a pretty jest—certainly, she is a clever woman, she enlists Balthasar as her champion—he becomes enraged, furious, and Hugh is cast into the dungeons for his pains.” The witch laughed softly. “He would not retract, his case swayed to and fro, but Balthasar and the Empress always hated him, he had never a chance.”

Dirk rose and pressed his clasped hand to his temple.

“What do you say? never a chance?”

Nathalie stared at him.

“Why, you seem moved.”

“Tell me of Hugh of Rooselaare,” commanded Dirk in an intense voice.

“He is to die to-night at sunset.”

Dirk uttered a hoarse exclamation.

“Old witch!” he cried bitterly, “why did you not tell me this before? I lose time, time.”

He snatched his cloak from the wall and flung on his hat.

“What is Hugh of Rooselaare to you?” asked Nathalie, and she crept across the room and clung to the young man’s garments.

He shook her off fiercely.

“He must not die—he, on the scaffold! I, as you say, I was following that boy and his love while this was happening!”

The witch fell back against the wall, while overhead the restless tread of Theirry sounded. Dirk dashed from the room and out into the quiet street.

For a second he paused; it was late afternoon, he had perhaps an hour or an hour and a half. Clenching his hands, he drew a deep breath, and turned in the direction of the palace at a steady run.

By reason of the snow clouds and the bitter cold there were few abroad to notice the slim figure running swiftly and lightly; those who were about made their way in the direction of the market-place, where the Lord of Rooselaare was presently to meet his death.

Dirk arrived at the palace one hand over his heart, stinging him with the pain of his great speed; he demanded the Empress.

None among the guards knew either him or his name, but, at his imperious insistence, they sent word by a page to Ysabeau that the young doctor Constantine had a desire to see her.

The boy returned, and Dirk was admitted instantly, smiling gloomily to think with what feelings Ysabeau would look on him.

So far all had been swiftly accomplished; he was conducted to her private chamber and brought face to face with her while he still panted from his running.

She stood against a high arched window that showed the heavy threatening winter clouds without; her purple, green and gold draperies shone warmly in the glitter of the fire; a tray of incense stood on the hearth after the manner of the East, and the hazy clouds of it rose before her.

Until the page had gone neither spoke, then Dirk said quickly—

“I returned to Frankfort to-day.”

Ysabeau was agitated to fear by his sudden appearance.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “I thought you dead.”

Dirk, pale and grave, gave her a penetrating glance.

“I have no time for speech with you now—you owe me something, do you not? Well, I am here to ask part payment.”

The Empress winced.

“Well—what? I had no wish to be ungrateful, ’twas you avoided me.”

She crossed to the hearth and fixed her superb eyes intently on the youth.

“Hugh of Rooselaare is to die this evening,” he said.

“Yea,” answered Ysabeau, and her childish loveliness darkened.

For a while Dirk was silent; he showed suddenly frail and ill; on his face was an expression of emotion, mastered and held back.

“He must not die,” he said at last and lifted his eyes, shadowed with fatigue. “That is what I demand of you, his pardon, now, and at once—we have but little time.”

Ysabeau surveyed him curiously and fearfully.

“You ask too much,” she replied in a low voice; “do you know why this man is to die?”

“For speaking the truth,” he said, with a sudden sneer.

The Empress flushed, and clutched the embroidery on her bodice.

“You of all men should know why he must be silenced,” she retorted bitterly. “What is your reason for asking his life?”

Dirk’s mouth took on an ugly curl.

“My reason is no matter—it is my will.”

Ysabeau beat her foot on the edge of the Eastern carpet.

“Have I made you so much my master?” she muttered.

The young man answered impatiently.

“You will give me his pardon, and make haste, for I must ride with it to the market-place.”

She answered with a lowering glance.

“I think I will not; I am not so afraid of you, and I hate this man—my secret is your secret after all.”

Dirk gave a wan smile.

“I can blast you as I blasted Melchoir of Brabant, Ysabeau, and do you think I have any fear of what you can say? But”—he leaned towards her—“suppose I go with what I know to Balthasar?”

The name humbled the Empress like a whip held over her.

“So, I am helpless,” she muttered, loathing him.

“The pardon,” insisted Dirk; “sound the bell and write me a pardon.”

Still she hesitated; it was a hard thing to lose her vengeance against a dangerous enemy.

“Choose another reward,” she pleaded. “Of what value can this man’s life be to you?”

“You seek to put me off until it be too late,” cried Dirk hoarsely—he stepped forward and seized the hand-bell on the table—“now an’ you show yourself obstinate, I go straight from here to Balthasar and tell him of the poisoning of Melchoir.”

Instinct and desire rose in Ysabeau to defy him with everything in her possession, from her guards to her nails; she shuddered with suppressed wrath, and pressed her little clenched hands against the wall.
 
BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

Her Chamberlain entered.

“Write out a pardon for the Lord of Rooselaare,” commanded Dirk, “and haste, as you love your place.”

When the man had gone, Ysabeau turned with an ill-concealed savagery.

“What will they think! What will Balthasar think!”

“That must be your business,” said Dirk wearily.

“And Hugh himself!” flashed the Empress.

The youth coloured painfully.

“Let him be sent to his castle in Flanders,” he said, with averted face. “He must not remain here.”

“So much you give in!” cried Ysabeau. “I do not understand you.”

He responded with a wild look.

“No one will ever understand me, Ysabeau.”

The Chamberlain returned, and in a shaking hand the Empress took the parchment and the reed pen, while Dirk waved the man’s dismissal.

“Sign,” he cried to her.

Ysabeau set the parchment on the table and looked out at the gathering clouds; the Lord of Rooselaare must have already left the prison.

She dallied with the pen; then took a little dagger from her hair and sharpened it; Dirk read her purpose in her lovely evil eyes, and snatched the lingering right hand into his own long fingers.

The Empress drew together and looked up at him bitterly and darkly, but Dirk’s breath stirred the ringlets that touched her cheek, his cool grip guided her reluctant pen; she shivered with fear and defiance; she wrote her name.

Dirk flung her hand aside with a great sigh of relief.

“Do not try to foil me again, Marozia Porphyrogentris,” he cried, and caught up the parchment, his hat and cloak.

She watched him leave the room; heard the heavy door close behind him, and she writhed with rage, thrusting, with an uncontrollable gesture of passion, the dagger into the table; it quivered in the wood, then broke under her hand.

With an ugly cry she ran to the window, flung it open and cast the handle out.

When it rattled on the cobbled yard Dirk was already there; he marked it fall, knew the gold and red flash, and smiled.

Showing the parchment signed by the Empress, he had commanded the swiftest horse in the stables. He cursed and shivered, waiting while the seconds fled; his slight figure and fierce face awed into silence the youngest in the courtyard as he paced up and down. At last—the horse; one of the grooms gave him a whip; he put it under his left arm and leapt to his seat; they opened the gate and watched him take the wind-swept street.

The market-place lay at the other end of the town; and the hour for the execution was close at hand—but the white horse he rode was fresh and strong.

The thick grey clouds had obscured the sunset and covered the sky; a few trembling flakes of snow fell, a bitter wind blew between the high narrow houses; here and there a light sparkling in a window emphasized the colourless cold without.

Dirk urged the steed till he rocked in the saddle; curtains were pulled aside and doors opened to see who rode by so furiously; the streets were empty—but there would be people enough in the market-place.

He passed the high walls of the college, galloped over the bridge that crossed the sullen waters of the Main, swept by the open doors of St. Wolfram, then had to draw rein, for the narrow street began to be choked with people.

He pulled his hat over his eyes and flung his cloak across the lower half of his face; with one hand he dragged on the bridle, with the other waved the parchment.

“A pardon!” he cried. “A pardon! Make way!”

They drew aside before the plunging steed; some answered him—

“It is no pardon—he wears not the Empress’s livery.”

One seized his bridle; Dirk leant from the saddle and dashed the parchment into the fellow’s face, the horse snorted, and plunging cleared a way and gained the market-place.

Here the press was enormous; men, women and children were gathered close round the mounted soldiers who guarded the scaffold; the armour, yellow and blue uniforms and bright feathers of the horsemen showed vividly against the grey houses and greyer sky.

On the scaffold were two dark, graceful figures; a man kneeling, with his long throat bare, and a man standing with a double-edged sword in his hands.

“A pardon!” shrieked Dirk. “In the name of the Emperor!”

He was wedged in the crowd, who made bewildered movements but could not give place to him; the soldiers did not or would not hear.

Dirk rose desperately in his stirrups; as he did so the hat and cloak fell back and his head and shoulders were revealed clearly above the swaying mass.

Hugh of Rooselaare heard the cry; he looked across the crowd and his eyes met the eyes of Dirk Renswoude.

“A pardon!” cried Dirk hoarsely; he saw the condemned man’s lips move.

The sword fell.…

“A woman screamed,” said the monk on the scaffold, “and proclaimed a pardon.”

And he pointed to the commotion gathered about Dirk, while the executioner displayed to the crowd the serene head of Hugh of Rooselaare.

“Nay, it was not a woman,” one of the soldiers answered the monk, “ ’twas this youth.”

Dirk forced to the foot of the scaffold.

“Let me through,” he said in a terrible voice; the guard parted; and seeing the parchment in his hand, let him mount the steps.

“You bring a pardon?” whispered the monk.

“I am too late,” said Dirk; he stood among the hurrying blood that stained the platform, and his face was hard.

“Dogs! was this an end for a lord of Rooselaare!” he cried, and clasped his hand on a straining breast. “Could you not have waited a little—but a few moments more?”

The snow was falling fast; it lay on Dirk’s shoulders and on his smooth hair; the monk drew the parchment from his passive hand and read it in a whisper to the officer; they both looked askance at the young man.

“Give me his head,” said Dirk.

The executioner had placed it at a corner of the scaffold; he left off wiping his sword and brought it forward.

Dirk watched without fear or repulsion, and took Hugh’s head in his slim fair hands.

“How heavy it is,” he whispered.

The quick distortion of death had left the proud features; Dirk held the face close to his own, with no heed to the blood that trickled down his doublet.

Priest and captain standing apart, noticed a horrible likeness between the dead and the living, but would not speak of it.

“Churl,” said Dirk, gazing into the half-closed grey eyes that resembled so his own. “He spoke—as he saw me; what did he say?”

The headsman polished the mighty blade.

“Nought to do with you, or with any,” he answered, “the words had no meaning, certes.”

“What were they?” whispered the youth.

“ ‘Have you come for me, Ursula?’ then he said again, ‘Ursula.’ ”

A quiver ran through Dirk’s frame.

“She shall repent this, the Eastern witch!” he said wildly. “May the Devil snatch you all to bitter judgment!”

He turned to the captain, with the head held against his breast.

“What are you going to do with this?”

“His wife has asked for his head and his body that he may be buried befitting his estate.”

“His wife!” echoed Dirk; then slowly, “Ay, he had a wife—and a son, sir?”

“The child is dead.”

Dirk set the head down gently by the body.

“And his lands?” he asked.

“They go, sir, by favour of the Empress, to Balthasar of Courtrai, who married, as you may know, this lord’s heiress, Ursula, dead now many years.”

The snow had scattered the crowd; the soldiers were impatient to begone; the blood stiffened and froze about their feet; Dirk looked down at the dead man with an anguished and hopeless expression.

“Sir,” said the officer, “will you return with me to the palace, and we will tell the Empress how this mischance arose, how you came too late.”

“Nay,” replied Dirk fiercely. “Take that good news alone.”

He turned and descended the scaffold steps in a proud, gloomy manner.

One of the soldiers held his horse; he mounted in silence and rode away; they who watched saw the thick snowflakes blot out the solitary figure, and shuddered with no cause they understood.
 
BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

CHAPTER XXI.
BETRAYED
Nathalie stood at the door with a lantern in her hand.

Dirk was returning; the witch held up the light to catch a glimpse of his face, then, whispering and crying under her breath, followed into the house.

“There is blood on your shoes and on your breast,” she whispered, when they reached the long chamber at the back.

Dirk flung himself on a chair and moaned; the snow lay still on his hair and his shoulders; he buried his face in the bend of his arm.

“Zerdusht and his master have forsaken us,” whimpered the witch. “I could work no spells to-night, and the mirror was blank.”

Dirk spoke in a muffled voice, without raising his head.

“Of what use magic to me? I should have stayed in Frankfort.”

Nathalie drew his wet cloak from his shoulders.

“Have I not warned you? has not the brass head warned you that the young scholar will be your ruin, bringing you to woe and misery and shame?”

Dirk rose with a sob, and turned to the fire; the one dim lamp alone dispelled the cold darkness of the room, and the thin flames on the hearth fell into ashes before their eyes.

“Look at his blood on me!” cried Dirk, “his blood! Balthasar and Ysabeau make merry with his lands, but my hate shall mean something to them yet—I should not have left Frankfort.”

He rested his head against one of the supports of the chimney-piece, and Nathalie, peering into his face, saw that his eyes were wet.

“Alas! who was this man?”

“I did all I could,” whispered Dirk… “the Empress shall burn in hell.”

The sickly creeping flames illuminated his pallid face and his small hand, hanging clenched by his side.

“This is an evil day for us,” moaned the witch, “the spirits will not answer, the flames will not burn… some horrible misfortune threatens.”

Dirk turned his gaze into the half-dark room.

“Where is Theirry?”

“Gone.” Nathalie rocked to and fro on her stool.

“Gone!” shivered Dirk, “gone where?”

“Soon after you left he crept from his chamber, and his face was evil—he went into the street.”

Dirk paced up and down with uneven steps.

“He will come back, he must come back! Ah, my heart! You say Zerdusht will not speak to-night?”

The witch moaned and trembled over the fire.

“Nay, nor will the spirits come.”

Dirk shook his clenched fist in the air.

“They shall answer me.”

He went to the window, opened it and looked out into blackness.

“Bring the lamp.”

Nathalie obeyed; the faint light showed the hastening snowflakes, no more.

“Maybe they will listen to me, nay, as I say, they shall.”

The witch followed with the swinging lamp in her hand, while they made their way in silence through the darkness and the snow, in between the bare rose bushes, over the wet, cold earth until they reached the trap-door at the end of the garden that led to the witch’s kitchen. Here she paused while Dirk raised the stone.

“Surely the earth shook then,” he said. “I felt it tremble beneath my feet—hush, there is a light below!”

The witch peered over his shoulder and saw a faint glow rising from the open trap, while at that moment her own lamp went suddenly out.

They stood in outer darkness.

“Will you dare descend?” muttered Nathalie.

“What should I fear?” came the low, wild answer, and Dirk put his foot on the ladder… the witch followed… they found themselves in the chamber, and saw that it was lit by an immense fire, seated before which was an enormous man, with his back towards them; he was dressed in black, and at his feet lay stretched a huge black hound.

The snow dripped from the garments of the new-comers as it melted in the hot air; they stood very still.

“Good even,” said Dirk in a low voice.

The stranger turned a face as black as his garments; round his neck he wore a collar of most brilliant red and purple stones.

“A cold night,” he said, and again it seemed as if the earth rumbled and shook.

“You find our fire welcome,” answered Dirk, but the witch crouched against the wall, muttering to herself.

“A good heat, a good heat,” said the Blackamoor.

Dirk crossed the room, his arms folded on his breast, his head erect.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Warming myself, warming myself.”

“What have you to say to me?”

The Blackamoor drew closer to the fire.

“Ugh! how cold it is!” he said, and stuck out his leg and thrust it deep into the seething flames.

Dirk drew still nearer.

“If you be what I think you, you have some reason in coming here.”

The black man put his other leg into the fire, and the flames curled to his knees.

“I have been to the palace, I have been to the palace. I sat under the Empress’s chair while she talked to a pretty youth whose name is Theirry—a-ah! it was cold in the palace, there was snow on the youth’s garments, as there is blood on yours, and the Emperor was there.…”

All this while he looked into the fire, not at Dirk.

“Theirry has betrayed me,” said the youth.

The Blackamoor took his legs from the fire unscorched and untouched, and the hell-hound rose and howled.

“He has betrayed you, and Ysabeau accuses you to save herself; but the devils are on your side since there is other work for you to do; flee from Frankfort, and I will see that you fulfil your destiny.”

And now he glanced over his shoulder.

“The witch comes home to-night, to-night, the work here is done, take the road through Frankfort.”

He stood up, and his head touched the roof; the gems on his throat gave out long rays of light… the fire grew dim; the Blackamoor changed into a thick column of smoke… that spread.…

“Hell will not forsake you, Ursula of Rooselaare.”

Dirk fell back against the wall, thick vapours encompassing him; he put his hands over his face.…

When he looked up again the room was clear and lit by the beams of the dying fire; he gazed round for the witch, but Nathalie had gone.

With a thick sob in his throat he sprang up the ladder into the outer air, and rushed towards the desolate house.

Desolate indeed; empty, dark and cold it stood, the snow drifting in through the open windows, the fires extinguished on the hearths, a dead place never more to be inhabited.

Dirk leant against the door, breathing hard.

Here was a crisis of his fate; betrayed by the one whom he loved, deserted, too, it seemed, since Nathalie had disappeared… the Blackamoor… he remembered him as a vision… a delusion perhaps.

Oh, how cold it was! Would his accusers come for him to-night? He crept to the gate that gave on to the street and listened.

“Nathalie!” he cried forlornly.

Out of the further darkness came a distant hurry and confusion of sound.

Horses, shouting, eager feet; a populace roused, on the heels of the dealer in black magic, armed with fire and sword for the witches.…

Dirk opened the gate, for the last time stepped from the witch’s garden; he wondered if Theirry was with the oncoming crowd, yet he did not think so, probably he was in the palace, probably he had repented already of what he had done; but the Empress had found her chance; her accusation falling first, who would take his word against her? …

He wore neither cloak nor hat, and as he waited against the open gate the thick snow covered him from head to foot; his spirit had never been afraid, was not afraid now, but his frail body shivered and shrank back as when the angry students fronted him at Basle.

He listened to the noises of the approaching people, till through these another sound, nearer and stranger, made him turn his head.

It came from the witch’s house.
 
Herbert West--Reanimator, cont'd.

II. The Plague-Daemon

I shall never forget that hideous summer sixteen years ago, when like a noxious afrite from the halls of Eblis typhoid stalked leeringly through Arkham. It is by that satanic scourge that most recall the year, for truly terror brooded with bat-wings over the piles of coffins in the tombs of Christchurch Cemetery; yet for me there is a greater horror in that time—a horror known to me alone now that Herbert West has disappeared.

West and I were doing post-graduate work in summer classes at the medical school of Miskatonic University, and my friend had attained a wide notoriety because of his experiments leading toward the revivification of the dead. After the scientific slaughter of uncounted small animals the freakish work had ostensibly stopped by order of our sceptical dean, Dr. Allan Halsey; though West had continued to perform certain secret tests in his dingy boarding-house room, and had on one terrible and unforgettable occasion taken a human body from its grave in the potter’s field to a deserted farmhouse beyond Meadow Hill.

I was with him on that odious occasion, and saw him inject into the still veins the elixir which he thought would to some extent restore life’s chemical and physical processes. It had ended horribly—in a delirium of fear which we gradually came to attribute to our own overwrought nerves—and West had never afterward been able to shake off a maddening sensation of being haunted and hunted. The body had not been quite fresh enough; it is obvious that to restore normal mental attributes a body must be very fresh indeed; and a burning of the old house had prevented us from burying the thing. It would have been better if we could have known it was underground.

After that experience West had dropped his researches for some time; but as the zeal of the born scientist slowly returned, he again became importunate with the college faculty, pleading for the use of the dissecting-room and of fresh human specimens for the work he regarded as so overwhelmingly important. His pleas, however, were wholly in vain; for the decision of Dr. Halsey was inflexible, and the other professors all endorsed the verdict of their leader. In the radical theory of reanimation they saw nothing but the immature vagaries of a youthful enthusiast whose slight form, yellow hair, spectacled blue eyes, and soft voice gave no hint of the supernormal—almost diabolical—power of the cold brain within. I can see him now as he was then—and I shiver. He grew sterner of face, but never elderly. And now Sefton Asylum has had the mishap and West has vanished.

West clashed disagreeably with Dr. Halsey near the end of our last undergraduate term in a wordy dispute that did less credit to him than to the kindly dean in point of courtesy. He felt that he was needlessly and irrationally retarded in a supremely great work; a work which he could of course conduct to suit himself in later years, but which he wished to begin while still possessed of the exceptional facilities of the university. That the tradition-bound elders should ignore his singular results on animals, and persist in their denial of the possibility of reanimation, was inexpressibly disgusting and almost incomprehensible to a youth of West’s logical temperament. Only greater maturity could help him understand the chronic mental limitations of the “professor-doctor” type—the product of generations of pathetic Puritanism; kindly, conscientious, and sometimes gentle and amiable, yet always narrow, intolerant, custom-ridden, and lacking in perspective. Age has more charity for these incomplete yet high-souled characters, whose worst real vice is timidity, and who are ultimately punished by general ridicule for their intellectual sins—sins like Ptolemaism, Calvinism, anti-Darwinism, anti-Nietzscheism, and every sort of Sabbatarianism and sumptuary legislation. West, young despite his marvellous scientific acquirements, had scant patience with good Dr. Halsey and his erudite colleagues; and nursed an increasing resentment, coupled with a desire to prove his theories to these obtuse worthies in some striking and dramatic fashion. Like most youths, he indulged in elaborate day-dreams of revenge, triumph, and final magnanimous forgiveness.

And then had come the scourge, grinning and lethal, from the nightmare caverns of Tartarus. West and I had graduated about the time of its beginning, but had remained for additional work at the summer school, so that we were in Arkham when it broke with full daemoniac fury upon the town. Though not as yet licenced physicians, we now had our degrees, and were pressed frantically into public service as the numbers of the stricken grew. The situation was almost past management, and deaths ensued too frequently for the local undertakers fully to handle. Burials without embalming were made in rapid succession, and even the Christchurch Cemetery receiving tomb was crammed with coffins of the unembalmed dead. This circumstance was not without effect on West, who thought often of the irony of the situation—so many fresh specimens, yet none for his persecuted researches! We were frightfully overworked, and the terrific mental and nervous strain made my friend brood morbidly.

But West’s gentle enemies were no less harassed with prostrating duties. College had all but closed, and every doctor of the medical faculty was helping to fight the typhoid plague. Dr. Halsey in particular had distinguished himself in sacrificing service, applying his extreme skill with whole-hearted energy to cases which many others shunned because of danger or apparent hopelessness. Before a month was over the fearless dean had become a popular hero, though he seemed unconscious of his fame as he struggled to keep from collapsing with physical fatigue and nervous exhaustion. West could not withhold admiration for the fortitude of his foe, but because of this was even more determined to prove to him the truth of his amazing doctrines. Taking advantage of the disorganisation of both college work and municipal health regulations, he managed to get a recently deceased body smuggled into the university dissecting-room one night, and in my presence injected a new modification of his solution. The thing actually opened its eyes, but only stared at the ceiling with a look of soul-petrifying horror before collapsing into an inertness from which nothing could rouse it. West said it was not fresh enough—the hot summer air does not favour corpses. That time we were almost caught before we incinerated the thing, and West doubted the advisability of repeating his daring misuse of the college laboratory.

The peak of the epidemic was reached in August. West and I were almost dead, and Dr. Halsey did die on the 14th. The students all attended the hasty funeral on the 15th, and bought an impressive wreath, though the latter was quite overshadowed by the tributes sent by wealthy Arkham citizens and by the municipality itself. It was almost a public affair, for the dean had surely been a public benefactor. After the entombment we were all somewhat depressed, and spent the afternoon at the bar of the Commercial House; where West, though shaken by the death of his chief opponent, chilled the rest of us with references to his notorious theories. Most of the students went home, or to various duties, as the evening advanced; but West persuaded me to aid him in “making a night of it”. West’s landlady saw us arrive at his room about two in the morning, with a third man between us; and told her husband that we had all evidently dined and wined rather well.

Apparently this acidulous matron was right; for about 3 a.m. the whole house was aroused by cries coming from West’s room, where when they broke down the door they found the two of us unconscious on the blood-stained carpet, beaten, scratched, and mauled, and with the broken remnants of West’s bottles and instruments around us. Only an open window told what had become of our assailant, and many wondered how he himself had fared after the terrific leap from the second story to the lawn which he must have made. There were some strange garments in the room, but West upon regaining consciousness said they did not belong to the stranger, but were specimens collected for bacteriological analysis in the course of investigations on the transmission of germ diseases. He ordered them burnt as soon as possible in the capacious fireplace. To the police we both declared ignorance of our late companion’s identity. He was, West nervously said, a congenial stranger whom we had met at some downtown bar of uncertain location. We had all been rather jovial, and West and I did not wish to have our pugnacious companion hunted down.

That same night saw the beginning of the second Arkham horror—the horror that to me eclipsed the plague itself. Christchurch Cemetery was the scene of a terrible killing; a watchman having been clawed to death in a manner not only too hideous for description, but raising a doubt as to the human agency of the deed. The victim had been seen alive considerably after midnight—the dawn revealed the unutterable thing. The manager of a circus at the neighbouring town of Bolton was questioned, but he swore that no beast had at any time escaped from its cage. Those who found the body noted a trail of blood leading to the receiving tomb, where a small pool of red lay on the concrete just outside the gate. A fainter trail led away toward the woods, but it soon gave out.

The next night devils danced on the roofs of Arkham, and unnatural madness howled in the wind. Through the fevered town had crept a curse which some said was greater than the plague, and which some whispered was the embodied daemon-soul of the plague itself. Eight houses were entered by a nameless thing which strewed red death in its wake—in all, seventeen maimed and shapeless remnants of bodies were left behind by the voiceless, sadistic monster that crept abroad. A few persons had half seen it in the dark, and said it was white and like a malformed ape or anthropomorphic fiend. It had not left behind quite all that it had attacked, for sometimes it had been hungry. The number it had killed was fourteen; three of the bodies had been in stricken homes and had not been alive.

On the third night frantic bands of searchers, led by the police, captured it in a house on Crane Street near the Miskatonic campus. They had organised the quest with care, keeping in touch by means of volunteer telephone stations, and when someone in the college district had reported hearing a scratching at a shuttered window, the net was quickly spread. On account of the general alarm and precautions, there were only two more victims, and the capture was effected without major casualties. The thing was finally stopped by a bullet, though not a fatal one, and was rushed to the local hospital amidst universal excitement and loathing.

For it had been a man. This much was clear despite the nauseous eyes, the voiceless simianism, and the daemoniac savagery. They dressed its wound and carted it to the asylum at Sefton, where it beat its head against the walls of a padded cell for sixteen years—until the recent mishap, when it escaped under circumstances that few like to mention. What had most disgusted the searchers of Arkham was the thing they noticed when the monster’s face was cleaned—the mocking, unbelievable resemblance to a learned and self-sacrificing martyr who had been entombed but three days before—the late Dr. Allan Halsey, public benefactor and dean of the medical school of Miskatonic University.

To the vanished Herbert West and to me the disgust and horror were supreme. I shudder tonight as I think of it; shudder even more than I did that morning when West muttered through his bandages,

“Damn it, it wasn’t quite fresh enough!”
 
ELLE101 said:
https://youtu.be/F2Z2CklSxM0?si=UMZWe6c7SQaVf4A7

623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
623-36-4798
Click to expand...
1771474255243.png
 
BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

It came from the witch’s house.

“Nathalie!” called Dirk in a half hope.

But the blackness rippled into fire, swift flames sprang up, a column of gold and scarlet enveloped house and garden in a curling embrace.

Dirk ran out into the road, where the glare of the fire lit the swirling snow for a trembling circle, and shading his eyes he stared at the flames that consumed all his books, his magic herbs and potions, the strange things, rich and beautiful, that Nathalie had gathered in her long evil life; then he turned and ran down the street as the crowd surged in at the other end, to fall back upon one another aghast before the mighty flames that gave them mocking welcome.

Their dismayed and angry shouts came to Dirk’s ears as he ran through the snow; he fled the faster, towards the eastern gate.

It was not yet shut; light of foot and swift he darted through before they could challenge him, perhaps even before the careless guards saw him.

He was a fine runner, not easily fatigued, but he had already strained his endurance to the utmost, and, after he had well cleared the city gates, his limbs failed him and he fell to a walk.

The intense darkness produced a feeling of bewilderment, almost of light-headedness; he kept looking back over his shoulder, at the distant lights of Frankfort, to assure himself that he was not unwittingly stumbling back to the gates.

Finally he stood still and listened; he must be near the river; and after a while he could distinguish the sound of its sullen flow coming faintly out of the silent dark.

Well, of what use was the river to him, or aught else; he was cold, weary, pursued and betrayed; all he had with him were some few pieces of white money and a little phial of swift and keen poison that he never failed to carry in his breast; if his master failed him he would not go alive into the flames.

But, hopeless as his case might seem, he was far from resorting to this last refuge; he remembered the Blackamoor’s words, and dragged his numbed and aching limbs along.

After a while he saw, glimmering ahead of him, a light.

It was neither in a house nor carried in the hand, for it shone low on the ground, lower, it seemed to Dirk, than his own feet.

He paused, listened, and proceeded cautiously for fear of the river, that must lie, he thought, very close to his left.

As he neared the light he saw it to be a lantern, that cast long rays across the clearing snowstorm; a glittering, trembling reflection beneath it told him it belonged to a boat roped to the bank.

Dirk crept towards it, went on his knees in the snow and mud, and beheld a small, empty craft, the lantern hanging at the prow.

He paused; the waters, rushing by steadily and angrily, must be flowing towards the Rhine and the town of Cologne.…

He stepped into the boat that rocked while the water splashed beneath him; but with cold hands he undid the knotted rope.

The boat trembled a moment, then sped on with the current as if glad to be freed.

An oar lay in the bottom, with which for a while Dirk helped himself along, fearful lest the owners of the boat should pursue, then he let himself float down stream as he might. The water lapped about him, and the snow fell on his unprotected and already soaked figure; he stretched himself along the bottom of the boat and hid his face in the cushioned seat.

“Hugh of Rooselaare is dead and Theirry has betrayed me,” he whispered into the darkness.

Then he began sobbing, very bitterly.

His anguished tears, the cruel cold, the steady sound of the unseen water exhausted and numbed him till he fell into a sleep that was half a swoon, while the boat drifted towards the town.

When he awoke he was still in the open country. The snow had ceased, but lay on the ground thick and untouched to the horizon.

Dirk dragged his cramped limbs to a sitting posture and stared about him; the river was narrow, the banks flat; the boat had been caught by a clump of stiff withered reeds and the prow driven into the snowy earth.

On either side the prospect was wintry and dreary; a grey sky brooded over a white land, a pine forest showed sadly in dark mournfulness, while near by a few bare isolated trees bent under their weight of snow; the very stillness was horribly ominous.

Dirk found it ill to move, for his limbs were frozen, his clothes wet and clinging to his wincing flesh, while his eyes smarted with his late weeping, and his head was racked with giddy pains.

For a while he sat, remembering yesterday till his face hardened and darkened, and he set his pale lips and crawled painfully out of the boat.

Before him was a sweep of snow leading to the forest, and as he gazed at this with dimmed, hopeless eyes, a figure in a white monk’s habit emerged from the trees.

He carried a rude wooden spade in his hand, and walked with a slow step; he was coming towards the river, and Dirk waited.

As the stranger neared he lifted his eyes, that had hitherto been cast on the ground, and Dirk recognised Saint Ambrose of Menthon.

Nevertheless Dirk did not despair; before the saint had recognised him his part was resolved upon.…

Ambrose of Menthon gazed with pity and horror at the forlorn little figure shivering by the reeds. It was not strange that he did not at once know him; Dirk’s face was of a ghastly hue, his eyes shadowed underneath, red and swollen, his lank hair clinging close to his small head, his clothes muddy, wet and soiled, his figure bent.

“Sir,” he said, and his voice was weak and sweet, “have pity on an evil thing.”

He fell on his knees and clasped his hands on his breast.

“Rise up,” answered the saint. “What God has given me is yours; poor soul, ye are very miserable.”

“More miserable than ye wot of,” said Dirk, through chattering teeth, still on his knees. “Do you not know me?”

Ambrose of Menthon looked at him closely.

“Alas!” he murmured slowly, “I know you.”

Dirk beat his breast.

“Mea culpa!” he moaned. “Mea culpa!”

“Rise. Come with me,” said the saint. “I will attend your wants.”

The youth did not move.

“Will you solace my soul, sir?” he cried. “God must have sent you here to save my soul—for long days I have sought you.”

Saint Ambrose’s face glowed.

“Have ye, then, repented?”

Dirk rose slowly to his feet and stood with bent head.

“May one repent of such offences?”

“God is very merciful,” breathed the saint tenderly.

“Remorse and sorrow fill my heart,” murmured Dirk. “I have cast off my evil comrades, renounced my vile gains and journeyed into the loneliness to find God His pardon… and it seemed He would not hear me.…”

“He hears all who come in grief and penitence,” said the saint joyously. “And He has heard you, for has He not sent me to find you, even in this most desolate place?”

“You feed me with hope,” answered Dirk in a quivering voice, “and revive me with glad tidings… may I dare, I, poor lost wretch, to be uplifted and exalted?”

“Poor youth,” was the tender murmur. “Come with me.”

He led the way across the thick snow, Dirk following with downcast eyes and white cheeks.

They skirted the forest and came upon a little hut, set back and sheltered among the scattered trees.

Saint Ambrose opened the rude door.

“I am alone now,” he said softly, as he entered. “I had with me a frail holy youth, who was travelling to Paris; last night he died, I have just laid his body in the earth, his soul rests on the bosom of the Lord.”

Dirk stepped into the hut and stood meekly on the threshold, and Saint Ambrose glanced at him wistfully.

“Maybe God has sent me this soul to tend and succour in place of that He has called home.”

Dirk whispered humbly—

“If I might think so.”

The saint opened an inner door.

“Your garments are wet and soiled.”

A sudden colour stained Dirk’s face.

“I have no others.”

Ambrose of Menthon pointed to the inner chamber.

“There Blaise died yester-eve; there are his clothes, enter and put them on.”

“It will be the habit of a novice?” asked Dirk softly.

“Yea.”

Dirk bent and kissed the saint’s fingers with ice-cold lips.

“I have dared,” he whispered, “to hope that I might die wearing the garb of God His servants, and now I dare even to hope that He shall grant my prayer.”

He stepped into the inner chamber and closed the door.
 
Interesting twist the last little couple of segments. I had thought for a while that Dirk was Hugh of Rooselaare's son, but to be his thought-to-be-dead wife? That dosen't even make sense the way Dirk was described as a 'pretty youth' along with Theirry, and as a lecturing teacher, wouldn't a woman's voice be pretty obvious? I don't think this part of the story's finished up yet. I don't see any real way Dirk could be Ursula even if he was named so twice. It also takes the homoreroticism way WAY down if he was a she.
 
The Un-Clit said:
Interesting twist the last little couple of segments. I had thought for a while that Dirk was Hugh of Rooselaare's son, but to be his thought-to-be-dead wife? That dosen't even make sense the way Dirk was described as a 'pretty youth' along with Theirry, and as a lecturing teacher, wouldn't a woman's voice be pretty obvious? I don't think this part of the story's finished up yet. I don't see any real way Dirk could be Ursula even if he was named so twice. It also takes the homoreroticism way WAY down if he was a she.
Click to expand...
Eh, I've seen people who were pretty and androgynous enough to pass for either gender, and I've also met women with voices deep enough that they could be mistaken for a high-pitched male when they speak, and that's if they don't do the Elizabeth Holmes thing and deliberately pitch their voice down an octave when they talk. I think the idea of Dirk being Ursula does raise more questions than it answers, though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom