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BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

“Sebastian,” said Jacobea; there was no change in voice nor countenance; she was erect and facing him, yet it might well be she did not see him, for there seemed no life in her eyes.

He came across the room to her, speaking as he came, but a sudden fresh gust of wind without scattered his words.

“Have you followed me?” she asked.

“Yea,” he answered hoarsely, staring at her; he had not dreamed a living face could look so white as hers, no, nor dead face either. He dropped to one knee before her, and took her limp hand.

“Shall we be free to-night?” she asked gently.

“You have but to speak,” he said. “So much will I do for you.”

She bent forward, and with her other hand touched his tumbled hair.

“Lord of Martzburg and my lord,” she said, and smiled sweetly. “Do you know how much I love you, Sebastian? why, you must ask the image of the Virgin—I have told her so often, and no one else; nay, no one else.”

Sebastian sprang to his feet.

“Oh God!” he cried. “I am ashamed—ye have bewitched her—she knows not what she says.”

Dirk turned on him fiercely.

“Did ye not curse me when ye thought she had escaped? did I not swear to recover her for you? is she not yours? Saint Gabriel cannot save her now.”

“If she had not said that,” muttered Sebastian; he turned distracted eyes upon her standing with no change in her expression, the tips of her fingers resting on the table; her wide grey eyes gazing before her.

“Fool,” answered Dirk; “an’ she did not love you, what chance had you? I left my fortunes to help you to this prize, and I will not see you palter now—lady, speak to him.”

“Ay, speak to me,” cried Sebastian earnestly; “tell me if it be your wish that I, at all costs, should become your husband, tell me if it is your will that the woman in our way should go.”

A slow passion stirred the calm of her face; her eyes glittered.

“Yes,” she said; “yes.”

“Jacobea!”—he took her arm and drew her close to him—“look me in the face and repeat that to me; think if it is worth—Hell—to you and me.”

She gazed up at him, then hid her face on his sleeve.

“Ay, Hell,” she answered heavily; “go to Martzburg to-night; she cannot claim you when she is dead; how I have striven not to hate her—my lord, my husband.” She clung to him like a sleepy child that feels itself falling into oblivion. “Now it is all over, is it not?—the unrest, the striving. Sebastian, beware of the storm—it blows so loud.”

He put her from him into the worn old chair. “I will come back to you—to-morrow.”

“To-morrow,” she repeated—“when the sun is up.”

The wind rushed between them and made the lamp-flame leap wildly.

“Make haste!” cried Dirk; “away—the horse is below.”

But Sebastian still gazed at Jacobea.

“It is done,” said Dirk impatiently, “begone.”

The steward turned away.

“They are all asleep below?” he questioned.

“Nor will they wake.”

Sebastian opened the door on to the dark stairway and went softly out.

“Now, it is done,” repeated Dirk in a swelling whisper, “and she is lost.”

He snatched up the lamp, and, holding it aloft, looked down at the drooping figure in the chair; Jacobea’s head sank back against the tarnished velvet; there was a smile on her white lips, and her hands rested in her lap; even with Dirk’s intent face bending over her and the full light pouring down on her, she did not look up.

“Gold hair and grey eyes—and her little feet,” murmured Dirk; “one of God’s own flowers—what are you now?”

He laughed to himself and reset the lamp on the table; the lull in the storm was over, wind and rain strove together in the bare trees, and the howlings of the tempest shook the long bare room.

Jacobea moved in her seat.

“Is he gone?” she asked fearfully.

“Certes, he has gone,” smiled Dirk. “Would you have him dally on such an errand?”

Jacobea rose swiftly and stood a moment listening to the unhappy wind.

“I thought he was here,” she said under her breath. “I thought that he had come at last.”

“He came,” said Dirk.

The chatelaine looked swiftly round at him; there was a dawning knowledge in her eyes.

“Who are you?” she demanded, and her voice had lost its calm; “what has happened?”

“Do you not remember me?” smiled Dirk.

Jacobea staggered back.

“Why,” she stammered, “he was here, down at my feet, and we spoke—about Sybilla.”

“And now,” said Dirk, “he has gone to free you of Sybilla—as you bid him.”

“As I bid him?”

Dirk clasped his cloak across his breast.

“At this moment he rides to Martzburg on this service of yours, and I must begone to Frankfort where my fortunes wait. For you, these words: should you meet again one Theirry, a pretty scholar, do not prate to him of God and Judgment, nor try to act the saint. Let him alone, he is no matter of yours, and maybe some woman cares for him as ye care for Sebastian, ay, and will hold him, though she have not yellow hair.”

Jacobea uttered a moan of anguish.

“I bid him go,” she whispered. “Did God utterly forsake me and I bid him go?”

She gave Dirk a wild look over her shoulders, huddling them to her ears, as she crouched upon the floor.

“You are the Devil!” she shrieked. “I have delivered myself unto the Devil!”

She beat her hands together, and fell towards his feet.

Dirk stepped close and peered curiously into her unconscious face.

“Why, she is not so fair,” he murmured, “and grief will spoil her bloom, and ’twas only her face he loved.”

He extinguished the lamp and smiled into the darkness.

“I do think God is very weak.”

He drew the curtain away from the deep-set window, and the moon, riding the storm clouds like a silver armoured Amazon, cast a ghastly light over the huddled figure of Jacobea of Martzburg, and threw her shadow dark and trailing across the cold floor.

Dirk left the chamber and the hostel unseen and unheard. The wind made too great a clamour for stray sounds to tell. Out in the wild, wet night he paused a moment to get his bearings; then turned towards the shed where he and Sebastian had left their horses.

The trees and the sign-board creaked and swung together; the long lances of the rain struck his face and the wind dashed his hair into his eyes, but he sang to himself under his breath with a joyous note.

The angry triumphant moon, casting her beams down the clouds, served to light the little wooden shed—the inn-stable—built against the rocks.

There were the chatelaine’s horses asleep in their stalls, here was his own; but the place beside it where Sebastian’s steed had waited was empty.

Dirk, shivering a little in the tempest, unfastened his horse, and was preparing to depart, when a near sound arrested him.

Some one was moving in the straw at the back of the shed.

Dirk listened, his hand on the bridle, till a moonbeam striking across his shoulder revealed a cloaked figure rising from the ground.

“Ah,” said Dirk softly, “who is this?”

The stranger got to his feet.

“I have but taken shelter here, sir,” he said, “deeming it too late to rouse the hostel——”

“Theirry!” cried Dirk, and laughed excitedly. “Now, this is strange——”

The figure came forward.

“Theirry—yes; have you followed me?” he exclaimed wildly, and his face showed drawn and wan in the silver light. “I left Frankfort to escape you; what fiend’s trick has brought you here?”

Dirk softly stroked his horse’s neck.

“Are you afraid of me, Theirry?” he asked mournfully. “Certes, there is no need.”

But Theirry cried out at him with the fierceness of one at bay—

“Begone, I want none of you nor of your kind; I know how the Emperor died, and I fled from a city where such as you come to power, ay, even as Jacobea of Martzburg did—I am come after her.”

“And where think you to find her?” asked Dirk.

“By now she is at Basle.”

“Are ye not afraid to go to Basle?”

Theirry trembled, and stepped back into the shadows of the shed.

“I want to save my soul; no, I am not afraid; if need be, I will confess.”

Dirk laughed.

“At the shrine of Jacobea of Martzburg? Look to it she be not trampled in the mire by then.”

“You lie, you malign her!” cried the other in strong agitation.

But Dirk turned on him with imperious sternness.

“I did not leave Frankfort on a fool’s errand—I was triumphant, at the high tide of my fortunes, my foot on Ysabeau’s neck. I had good reason to have left this alone. Come with me to Martzburg and see my work, and know the saint you worship.”

“To Martzburg?” Theirry’s voice had terror in it.

“Certes—to Martzburg.” Dirk began to lead his horse into the open.

“Is the chatelaine there?”

“If not yet, she will be soon; take one of these horses,” he added.

“I know not your meaning,” answered Theirry fearfully; “but my road was to Martzburg. I mean to pray Jacobea, who left without a word to me, to give me some small place in her service.”

“Belike she will,” mocked Dirk.

“You shall not go alone,” cried Theirry, becoming more distracted, “for no good purpose can you be pursuing her.”

“I asked your company.”

Impatiently and feverishly Theirry unfastened and prepared himself a mount.

“If ye have evil designs on her,” he cried, “be very sure ye will be defeated, for her strength is as the strength of angels.”

Dirk delicately guided his steed out of the shed; the moon had at last conquered the cloud battalions, and a clear cold light revealed the square dark shape of the hostel, the flapping sign, the bare pine-trees and the long glimmer of the road; Dirk’s eyes turned to the blank window of the room where Jacobea lay, and he smiled wickedly.

“The night has cleared,” he said, as Theirry, leading one of the chatelaine’s horses, came out of the stable; “and we should reach Martzburg before the dawn.”
 
BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

CHAPTER XIX.
SYBILLA
Sebastian paused on the steep, dark stairs and listened.

Castle Martzburg was utterly silent; he knew that there were one or two servants only within the walls, and that they slept at a distance; he knew that his cautious entry by the donjon door had made no sound, yet on every other step or so he stood still and listened.

He had procured a light; it fluttered in danger of extinction in the draughty stairway, and he had to shield it with his hand.

Once, when he stopped, he took from his belt the keys that had gained him admission and slipped them into the bosom of his doublet; hanging at his waist, they made a little jingling sound as he moved.

When he gained the great hall he opened the door as softly and slowly as if he did not know emptiness alone awaited him the other side.

He entered, and his little light only served to show the expanses of gloom.

It was very cold; he could hear the rain falling in a thin stream from the lips of the gargoyles without; he remembered that same sound on the night the two students took shelter; the night when the deed he was about to do had by a devil, in a whisper, been first put into his head.

He crossed to the hearth and set the lamp in the niche by the chimney-piece; he wished there was a fire—certainly it was cold.

The dim rays of the lamp showed the ashes on the hearth, the cushions in the window-seat, and something that, even in that dullness, shone with fiery hue.

Sebastian looked at it in a half horror: it was Sybilla’s red lily, finished and glowing from a samite cushion; by the side of it slept Jacobea’s little grey cat.

The steward gazing in curiously intent fashion recalled the fact that he had never conversed with his wife and never liked her; he could not tell of one sharp word between them, yet had she said she hated him he would have felt no surprise; he wondered, in case he had ever loved her, would he have been here to-night on this errand.

Lord of Martzburg!—lord of as fine a domain as any in the empire, with a chance of the imperial crown itself—nay, had he loved his wife it would have made no difference; what sorry fool even would let a woman interfere with a great destiny—Lord of Martzburg.

With little reflection on the inevitable for his wife, he fell to considering Jacobea; until to-night she had been a cipher to him—that she favoured him a mere voucher for his crime; for the procuring of this or that for him—a fact to be accepted and used; but that she should pray about him—speak as she had—that was another matter, and for the first time in his cold life he was both moved and ashamed. His thin, dark face flushed; he looked askance at the red lily and took the light from its niche.

The shadows seemed to gather and throng out of the silence, bearing down on him and urging him forward; he found the little door by the fireplace open, and ascended the steep stone stairs to his wife’s room.

Here there was not even the drip of the rain or the wail of the wind to disturb the stillness; he had taken off his boots, and his silk-clad feet made no sound, but he could not hush the catch of his breath and the steady thump of his heart.

When he reached her room he paused again, and again listened.

Nothing—how could there be? Had he not come so softly even the little cat had slept on undisturbed?

He opened the door and stepped in.

It was a small, low chamber; the windows were unshrouded, and fitful moonlight played upon the floor; Sebastian looked at once towards the bed, that stood to his left; it was hung with dark arras, now drawn back from the pillows.

Sybilla was asleep; her thick, heavy hair lay outspread under her cheek; her flesh and the bed-clothes were turned to one dazzling whiteness by the moon.

Worked into the coverlet, that had slipped half to the polished floor, were great wreaths of purple roses, showing dim yet gorgeous.

Her shoes stood on the bed steps; her clothes were flung over a chair; near by a crucifix hung against the wall, with her breviary on a shelf beneath.

The passing storm clouds cast luminous shadows across the chamber; but they were becoming fainter, the tempest was dying away. Sebastian put the lamp on a low coffer inside the door and advanced to the bed.

A large dusky mirror hung beside the window, and in it he could see his wife again, reflected dimly in her ivory whiteness with the dark lines of her hair and brows.

He came to the bedside so that his shadow was flung across her sleeping face.

“Sybilla,” he said.

Her regular breathing did not change.

“Sybilla.”

A swift cloud obscured the moon; the sickly rays of the lamp struggled with darkness.

“Sybilla.”

Now she stirred; he heard her fetch a sigh as one who wakens reluctantly from soft dreams.

“Do you not hear me speak, Sybilla?”

From the bewildering glooms of the bed he heard her silk bed-clothes rustle and slip; the moon came forth again and revealed her sitting up, wide awake now and staring at him.

“So you have come home, Sebastian?” she said. “Why did you rouse me?”

He looked at her in silence; she shook back her hair from her eyes.

“What is it?” she asked softly.

“The Emperor died,” said Sebastian.

“I know—what is that to me? Bring the light, Sebastian; I cannot see your face.”

“There is no need; the Emperor had not time to pray, I would not deal so with you, therefore I woke you.”

“Sebastian!”

“By my mistress’s commands you must die to-night, and by my desire; I shall be Lord of Martzburg, and there is no other way——”

She moved her head, and, peering forward, tried to see his face.

“Make your peace with Heaven,” he said hoarsely; “for to-morrow I must go to her a free man.”

She put her hand to her long throat.

“I wondered if you would ever say this to me—I did not think so, for it did not enter my mind that she could give commands.”

“Then you knew?”

Sybilla smiled.

“Before ever you did, Sebastian, and I have so thought of it, in these long days when I have been alone, it seemed that I must sew it even into my embroideries—‘Jacobea loves Sebastian.’ ”

He gripped the bed-post.

“It is the strangest thing,” said his wife, “that she should love you—you—and send you here to-night; she was a gracious maiden.”

“I am not here to talk of that,” answered Sebastian; “nor have we long—the dawn is not far off.”

Sybilla rose, setting her long feet on the bed step.

“So I must die,” she said—“must die. Certes! I have not lived so ill that I should fear to die, nor so pleasantly that I should yearn to live; it will be a poor thing in you to kill me, but no shame to me to be slain, my lord.”

As she stood now against the shadowed curtains her hair caught the lamplight and flashed into red gold about her colourless face; Sebastian looked at her with hatred and some terror, but she smiled strangely at him.

“You never knew me, Sebastian, but I am very well acquainted with you, and I do scorn you so utterly that I am sorry for the chatelaine.”

“She and I will manage that,” answered Sebastian fiercely; “and if you seek to divert or delay me by this talk it is useless, for I am resolved, nor will I be moved.”

“I do not seek to move you, nor do I ask you for my life. I have ever been dutiful, have I not?”

“Do not smile at me!” he cried. “You should hate me.”

She shook her head.

“Certes! I hate you not.”

She moved from the bed, in the long linen garment that she wore, slim and childish to see. She took a wrap of gold-coloured silk from a chair and put it about her. The man gazed at her the while with sullen eyes.
 
BLACK MAGIC BY MARJORIE BOWEN CONT

She glanced at the crucifix.

“I have nothing to say; God knows it all. I am ready.”

“I do not want your soul,” he cried.

Sybilla smiled.

“I made confession yesterday. How cold it is for this time of the year!—I do not shiver for fear, my lord.”

She put on her shoes, and as she stooped her brilliant hair fell and touched the patch of fading moonshine.

“Make haste,” breathed Sebastian.

His wife raised her face.

“How long have we been wed?” she asked.

“Let that be.” He paled and bit his lip.

“Three years—nay, not three years. When I am dead give my embroideries to Jacobea, they are in these coffers; I have finished the red lily—I was sewing it when the two scholars came, that night she first knew—and you first knew—but I had known a long while.”

Sebastian caught up the lamp.

“Be silent or speak to God,” he said.

She came gently across the floor, holding the yellow silk at her breast.

“What are you going to do with me?” she whispered. “Strangle me?—nay, they would see that—afterwards.”

Sebastian went to a little door that opened beside the bed and pulled aside the arras.

“That leads to the battlements,” she said.

He pointed to the dark steps.

“Go up, Sybilla.”

He held the lamp above his haggard face, and the light of it fell over the narrow winding stone steps; she looked at them and ascended. Sebastian followed, closing the door after him.

In a few moments they were out on the donjon roof.

The vast stretch of sky was clear now and paling for the dawn; faint pale clouds clustered round the dying moon, and the scattered stars pulsed wearily.

Below them lay the dark masses of the other portions of the castle, and beside them rose the straining pole and wind-tattered banner of Jacobea of Martzburg.

Sybilla leant against the battlements, her hair fluttering over her face.

“How cold it is!” she said in a trembling voice. “Make haste, my lord.”

He was shuddering, too, in the keen, insistent wind.

“Will you not pray?” he asked again.

“No,” she answered, and looked at him vacantly. “If I shriek would any one hear me?—Will it be more horrible than I thought? Make haste—make haste,—or I shall be afraid.”

She crouched against the stone, shivering violently. Sebastian put the lamp upon the ground.

“Take care it does not go out,” she said, and laughed. “You would not like to find your way back in the dark—the little cat will be sorry for me.”

She broke off to watch what he was doing.

A portion of the tower projected; here the wall was of a man’s height, and pierced with arblast holes; through there Sybilla had often looked and seen the country below framed in the stone like a picture in a letter of an horäe, so small it seemed, and yet clear and brightly coloured.

Beneath the wall was a paving-stone, raised at will by an iron ring; when lifted it revealed a sheer open drop the entire height of the donjon, through which stones and fire could be hurled in time of siege upon the assailants in the courtyard below; but Jacobea had always shuddered at it, nor had there been occasion to open it for many years.

Sybilla saw her husband strain at the ring and bend over the hole, and stepped forward.

“Must it be that way?—O Jesu! Jesu! shall I not be afraid?”

She clasped her hands and fixed her eyes on the figure of Sebastian as he raised the slab and revealed the black aperture; quickly he stepped back as stone rang on stone.

“So,” he said; “I shall not touch you, and it will be swiftly over—walk across, Sybilla.”

She closed her eyes and drew a long breath.

“Have you not the courage?” he cried violently. “Then I must hurl you from the battlements… it shall not look like murder.…”

She turned her face to the beautiful brightening sky.

“My soul is not afraid, but… how my body shrinks!—I do not think I can do it.…”

He made a movement towards her; at that she gathered herself.

“No—you shall not touch me.”

Across the donjon roof she walked with a firm step.

“Farewell, Sebastian; may God assoil me and thee.”

She put her hands to her face and moaned as her foot touched the edge of the hole… no shriek nor cry disturbed the serenity of the night, she made no last effort to save herself; but disappeared silently to the blackness of her death.

Sebastian listened to the strange indefinite sound of it, and drops of terror gathered on his brow; then all was silent again save for the monotonous flap of the banner.

“Lord of Martzburg,” he muttered to steady himself; “Lord of Martzburg.”

He dropped the stone into place, picked up the lantern and returned down the close, cold stairs. Her room… on the pillow the mark where her head had lain, her clothes over the coffer; well, he hated her, no less than he had ever done; to the last she had shamed him; why had he been so long?—too long—soon some one would be stirring, and he must be far from Martzburg before they found Sybilla.

He crept from the chamber with the same unnecessary stealth he had observed in entering, and in a cautious manner descended the stairs to the great hall.

To reach the little door that had admitted him he must traverse nearly half the castle; he cursed the distance, and the grey light that crept in through every window he passed and revealed to him his own shaking hand holding the useless lamp. Martzburg, his castle soon to be, had become hateful to him; always had he found it too vast, too empty; but now he would fill it as Jacobea had never done; the knights and her kinsfolk who had ever overlooked him should be his guests and his companions.

The thoughts that chased through his brain took curious turns; Jacobea was the Emperor’s ward… but the Emperor was dead, should he wed her secretly and how long need he wait? … Sybilla was often on the donjon keep, let it seem that she had fallen… none had seen him come, none would see him go… and Jacobea, strangest thing of all (he seemed to hear Sybilla saying it) that she should love him.…

The pale glow of a dreary dawn filled the great hall as he entered it; the grey cat was still asleep, and the shining silks of the red lily shone like the hair of the strange woman who had worked it patiently into the samite. He tiptoed across the hall, descended the wider stairs and made his way to the first chamber of the donjon.

Carefully he returned the lamp to the niche where he had found it; wondering, as he extinguished it, if any would note that it had been burnt that night; carefully he drew on his great muddy boots and crept out by the little postern door into the court.

So sheltered was the castle, and situated in so peaceful a place, that when the chatelaine was not within the walls the huge outer gates that required many men to close them stood open on to the hillside; beyond them Sebastian saw his patient horse, fastened to the ring of the bell chain, and beyond him the clear grey-blue hills and trees.

His road lay open; yet he closed the door slowly behind him and hesitated. He strove with a desire to go and look at her; he knew just how she had fallen… when he had first come to Martzburg, the hideous hole in the battlements exercised a great fascination over him; he had often flung down stones, clods of grass, even once a book, that he might hear the hollow whistling sound and imagine a furious enemy below.

Afterwards he had noticed these things and how they struck the bottom of the shaft,—lying where she would be now; he desired to see her, yet loathed the thought of it; there was his horse, there the open road, and Jacobea waiting a few miles away, yet he must linger while the accusing daylight gathered about him, while the rising sun discovered him; he must dally with the precious moments, bite the ends of his black hair, frown and stare at the round tower of the donjon the other side of which she lay.

At last he crossed the rough cobbles; skirted the keep and stood still, looking at her.

Yes—he had pictured her; yet he saw her more distinctly than he had imagined he would in this grey light. Her hair and her cloak seemed to be wrapped close about her; one hand still clung to her face; her feet showed bare and beautiful.

Sebastian crept nearer; he wanted to see her face and if her eyes were open; to be certain, also, if that dark red that lay spread on the ground was all her scattered locks… the light was treacherous.

He was stooping to touch her when the quick sound of an approaching horseman made him draw back and glance round.

But before he could even tell himself it were well to fly they were upon him; two horsemen, finely mounted, the foremost Dirk Renswoude, bare-headed, a rich colour in his cheek and a sparkle in his eyes; he reined up the slim brown horse.

“So—it is done?” he cried, leaning from the saddle towards Sebastian.

The steward stepped back.

“Whom have you with you?” he asked in a shaking voice.

“A friend of mine and a suitor to the chatelaine—of which folly you and I shall cure him.”

Theirry pressed forward, the hoofs of his striving horse making musical clatter on the cobbles.

“The steward!” he cried; “and…”

His voice sank; he turned burning eyes on Dirk.

“—the steward’s wife that was,” smiled the youth. “But, certes! you must do him worship now, he will be Lord of Martzburg.”

Sebastian was staring at Sybilla.

“You tell too much,” he muttered.

“Nay, my friend is one with me, and I can answer for his silence.” Dirk patted the horse’s neck and laughed again; laughter with a high triumphant note in it.

Theirry swung round on him in a desperate, bitter fierceness.

“Why have you brought me here? Where is the chatelaine?—by God His saints that woman has been murdered.…”

Dirk turned in the saddle and faced him.

“Ay, and by Jacobea of Martzburg’s commands.”

Theirry laughed aloud.

“The lie is dead as you give it being,” he answered—“nor can all your devilry make it live.”

“Sebastian,” said Dirk, “has not this woman come to her death by the chatelaine’s commands?”

He pointed to Sybilla.

“You know it, since in your presence she bade me hither,” answered Sebastian heavily.

Dirk’s voice rose clear and musical.

“You see your piece of uprightness thought highly of her steward, and that she might endow him with her hand his wife must die——”

“Peace! peace!” cried Sebastian fiercely, and Theirry rose in his saddle.

“It is a lie!” he repeated wildly. “If ’tis not a lie God has turned His face from me, and I am lost indeed!”

“If ’tis no lie,” cried Dirk exultingly, “you are mine—did ye not swear it?”

“An’ she be this thing you name her,” answered Theirry passionately—“then the Devil is cunning indeed, and I his servant; but if you speak false I will kill you at her feet.”

“And by that will I abide,” smiled Dirk. “Sebastian, you shall return with us to give this news to your mistress.”

“Is she not here?” cried Theirry.

Dirk pointed to the silver-plated harness.

“You ride her horse. See her arms upon his breast. Sweet fool, we left her behind in the hostel, waiting the steward’s return.…”

“All ways ye trap and deceive me,” exclaimed Theirry hotly.

“Let us begone,” said Sebastian; he looked at Dirk as if at his master. “Is it not time for us to begone?”

It was full daylight now, though the sun had not yet risen above the hills; the lofty walls and high towers of the huge grey castle blocked up the sky and threw into the gloom the three in their shadow.

“Hark!” said Dirk, and lifted his finger delicately.

Again the sound of a horse approaching on the long white road, the rise and fall of the quick trot bitterly distinct in the hard stillness.

“Who is this?” whispered Sebastian; he caught Dirk’s bridle as if he found protection in the youth’s near presence, and stared towards the blank open gates.

A white horse appeared against the cold misty background of grey country; a woman was in the saddle: Jacobea of Martzburg.

She paused, peered up at the high little windows in the donjon, then turned her gaze on the silent three.

“Now can the chatelaine speak for herself,” breathed Dirk.

Theirry gave a great sigh, his eyes fixed with a painful intensity on the approaching lady, but she did not seem to see either of them.

“Sebastian,” she cried, and drew rein gazing at him, “where is your wife?”

Her words rang on the cold, clear air like strokes on a bell.

“Sybilla died last night,” answered the steward, “but I did nought. And you should not have come.”

Jacobea shaded her brows with her gloved hand and stared past the speaker.

Theirry broke out in a trembling passion.

“In the name of the angels in whose company I ever placed you, what do you know of this that has been done?”

“What is that on the ground?” cried Jacobea. “Sybilla—he has slain Sybilla—but, sirs,”—she looked round her distractedly—“ye must not blame him—he saw my wish.…”

“From your own lips!” cried Theirry.

“Who are you who speak?” she demanded haughtily. “I sent him to slay Sybilla.…” She interrupted herself with a hideous shriek. “Sebastian, ye are stepping in her blood!”

And, letting go of the reins, she sank from the saddle; the steward caught her, and as she slipped from his hold to her knees her unconscious head came near to the stiff white feet of the dead.

“Her yellow hair!” cried Dirk. “Let us leave her to her steward—you and I have another way!”

“May God curse her as He has me,” said Theirry in an agony,—“for she has slain my hope of heaven!”

“You will not leave me?” called Sebastian. “What shall I say?—what shall I do?”

“Lie and lie again!” answered Dirk with a wild air; “wed the dame and damn her people—let fly your authority and break her heart as quickly as you may——”

“Amen to that!” added Theirry.

“And now to Frankfort!” cried Dirk, exultant.

They set their horses to a furious pace and galloped out of Castle Martzburg.
 
kiwi egg.png
hey guys. this is a hatching kiwi. take care of it or die
 
Herbert West--Reanimator
By H.P. Lovecraft

I. From the Dark

Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror. This terror is not due altogether to the sinister manner of his recent disappearance, but was engendered by the whole nature of his life-work, and first gained its acute form more than seventeen years ago, when we were in the third year of our course at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. While he was with me, the wonder and diabolism of his experiments fascinated me utterly, and I was his closest companion. Now that he is gone and the spell is broken, the actual fear is greater. Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.

The first horrible incident of our acquaintance was the greatest shock I ever experienced, and it is only with reluctance that I repeat it. As I have said, it happened when we were in the medical school, where West had already made himself notorious through his wild theories on the nature of death and the possibility of overcoming it artificially. His views, which were widely ridiculed by the faculty and his fellow-students, hinged on the essentially mechanistic nature of life; and concerned means for operating the organic machinery of mankind by calculated chemical action after the failure of natural processes. In his experiments with various animating solutions he had killed and treated immense numbers of rabbits, guinea-pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys, till he had become the prime nuisance of the college. Several times he had actually obtained signs of life in animals supposedly dead; in many cases violent signs; but he soon saw that the perfection of this process, if indeed possible, would necessarily involve a lifetime of research. It likewise became clear that, since the same solution never worked alike on different organic species, he would require human subjects for further and more specialised progress. It was here that he first came into conflict with the college authorities, and was debarred from future experiments by no less a dignitary than the dean of the medical school himself—the learned and benevolent Dr. Allan Halsey, whose work in behalf of the stricken is recalled by every old resident of Arkham.

I had always been exceptionally tolerant of West’s pursuits, and we frequently discussed his theories, whose ramifications and corollaries were almost infinite. Holding with Haeckel that all life is a chemical and physical process, and that the so-called “soul” is a myth, my friend believed that artificial reanimation of the dead can depend only on the condition of the tissues; and that unless actual decomposition has set in, a corpse fully equipped with organs may with suitable measures be set going again in the peculiar fashion known as life. That the psychic or intellectual life might be impaired by the slight deterioration of sensitive brain-cells which even a short period of death would be apt to cause, West fully realised. It had at first been his hope to find a reagent which would restore vitality before the actual advent of death, and only repeated failures on animals had shewn him that the natural and artificial life-motions were incompatible. He then sought extreme freshness in his specimens, injecting his solutions into the blood immediately after the extinction of life. It was this circumstance which made the professors so carelessly sceptical, for they felt that true death had not occurred in any case. They did not stop to view the matter closely and reasoningly.

It was not long after the faculty had interdicted his work that West confided to me his resolution to get fresh human bodies in some manner, and continue in secret the experiments he could no longer perform openly. To hear him discussing ways and means was rather ghastly, for at the college we had never procured anatomical specimens ourselves. Whenever the morgue proved inadequate, two local negroes attended to this matter, and they were seldom questioned. West was then a small, slender, spectacled youth with delicate features, yellow hair, pale blue eyes, and a soft voice, and it was uncanny to hear him dwelling on the relative merits of Christchurch Cemetery and the potter’s field. We finally decided on the potter’s field, because practically every body in Christchurch was embalmed; a thing of course ruinous to West’s researches.

I was by this time his active and enthralled assistant, and helped him make all his decisions, not only concerning the source of bodies but concerning a suitable place for our loathsome work. It was I who thought of the deserted Chapman farmhouse beyond Meadow Hill, where we fitted up on the ground floor an operating room and a laboratory, each with dark curtains to conceal our midnight doings. The place was far from any road, and in sight of no other house, yet precautions were none the less necessary; since rumours of strange lights, started by chance nocturnal roamers, would soon bring disaster on our enterprise. It was agreed to call the whole thing a chemical laboratory if discovery should occur. Gradually we equipped our sinister haunt of science with materials either purchased in Boston or quietly borrowed from the college—materials carefully made unrecognisable save to expert eyes—and provided spades and picks for the many burials we should have to make in the cellar. At the college we used an incinerator, but the apparatus was too costly for our unauthorised laboratory. Bodies were always a nuisance—even the small guinea-pig bodies from the slight clandestine experiments in West’s room at the boarding-house.

We followed the local death-notices like ghouls, for our specimens demanded particular qualities. What we wanted were corpses interred soon after death and without artificial preservation; preferably free from malforming disease, and certainly with all organs present. Accident victims were our best hope. Not for many weeks did we hear of anything suitable; though we talked with morgue and hospital authorities, ostensibly in the college’s interest, as often as we could without exciting suspicion. We found that the college had first choice in every case, so that it might be necessary to remain in Arkham during the summer, when only the limited summer-school classes were held. In the end, though, luck favoured us; for one day we heard of an almost ideal case in the potter’s field; a brawny young workman drowned only the morning before in Sumner’s Pond, and buried at the town’s expense without delay or embalming. That afternoon we found the new grave, and determined to begin work soon after midnight.

It was a repulsive task that we undertook in the black small hours, even though we lacked at that time the special horror of graveyards which later experiences brought to us. We carried spades and oil dark lanterns, for although electric torches were then manufactured, they were not as satisfactory as the tungsten contrivances of today. The process of unearthing was slow and sordid—it might have been gruesomely poetical if we had been artists instead of scientists—and we were glad when our spades struck wood. When the pine box was fully uncovered West scrambled down and removed the lid, dragging out and propping up the contents. I reached down and hauled the contents out of the grave, and then both toiled hard to restore the spot to its former appearance. The affair made us rather nervous, especially the stiff form and vacant face of our first trophy, but we managed to remove all traces of our visit. When we had patted down the last shovelful of earth we put the specimen in a canvas sack and set out for the old Chapman place beyond Meadow Hill.

On an improvised dissecting-table in the old farmhouse, by the light of a powerful acetylene lamp, the specimen was not very spectral looking. It had been a sturdy and apparently unimaginative youth of wholesome plebeian type—large-framed, grey-eyed, and brown-haired—a sound animal without psychological subtleties, and probably having vital processes of the simplest and healthiest sort. Now, with the eyes closed, it looked more asleep than dead; though the expert test of my friend soon left no doubt on that score. We had at last what West had always longed for—a real dead man of the ideal kind, ready for the solution as prepared according to the most careful calculations and theories for human use. The tension on our part became very great. We knew that there was scarcely a chance for anything like complete success, and could not avoid hideous fears at possible grotesque results of partial animation. Especially were we apprehensive concerning the mind and impulses of the creature, since in the space following death some of the more delicate cerebral cells might well have suffered deterioration. I, myself, still held some curious notions about the traditional “soul” of man, and felt an awe at the secrets that might be told by one returning from the dead. I wondered what sights this placid youth might have seen in inaccessible spheres, and what he could relate if fully restored to life. But my wonder was not overwhelming, since for the most part I shared the materialism of my friend. He was calmer than I as he forced a large quantity of his fluid into a vein of the body’s arm, immediately binding the incision securely.

The waiting was gruesome, but West never faltered. Every now and then he applied his stethoscope to the specimen, and bore the negative results philosophically. After about three-quarters of an hour without the least sign of life he disappointedly pronounced the solution inadequate, but determined to make the most of his opportunity and try one change in the formula before disposing of his ghastly prize. We had that afternoon dug a grave in the cellar, and would have to fill it by dawn—for although we had fixed a lock on the house we wished to shun even the remotest risk of a ghoulish discovery. Besides, the body would not be even approximately fresh the next night. So taking the solitary acetylene lamp into the adjacent laboratory, we left our silent guest on the slab in the dark, and bent every energy to the mixing of a new solution; the weighing and measuring supervised by West with an almost fanatical care.

The awful event was very sudden, and wholly unexpected. I was pouring something from one test-tube to another, and West was busy over the alcohol blast-lamp which had to answer for a Bunsen burner in this gasless edifice, when from the pitch-black room we had left there burst the most appalling and daemoniac succession of cries that either of us had ever heard. Not more unutterable could have been the chaos of hellish sound if the pit itself had opened to release the agony of the damned, for in one inconceivable cacophony was centred all the supernal terror and unnatural despair of animate nature. Human it could not have been—it is not in man to make such sounds—and without a thought of our late employment or its possible discovery both West and I leaped to the nearest window like stricken animals; overturning tubes, lamp, and retorts, and vaulting madly into the starred abyss of the rural night. I think we screamed ourselves as we stumbled frantically toward the town, though as we reached the outskirts we put on a semblance of restraint—just enough to seem like belated revellers staggering home from a debauch.

We did not separate, but managed to get to West’s room, where we whispered with the gas up until dawn. By then we had calmed ourselves a little with rational theories and plans for investigation, so that we could sleep through the day—classes being disregarded. But that evening two items in the paper, wholly unrelated, made it again impossible for us to sleep. The old deserted Chapman house had inexplicably burned to an amorphous heap of ashes; that we could understand because of the upset lamp. Also, an attempt had been made to disturb a new grave in the potter’s field, as if by futile and spadeless clawing at the earth. That we could not understand, for we had patted down the mould very carefully.

And for seventeen years after that West would look frequently over his shoulder, and complain of fancied footsteps behind him. Now he has disappeared.
 
Nicholas Was...

...older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside.
The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho.
 
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