Tales of the supernatural
Tales of the supernaturalTHE SEVEN SIGILS.THE HAND OF GLORY.THE RABBI LION.THE EVIL EYE.THE WITCHES' SABBATH."THE DEVIL'S DEBT."Copyright
Tales of the supernatural
James Platt
THE SEVEN SIGILS.
PART I.BRAVO AND POISONER.The Bottomless Lake of our Legend was reputed an outlet of
the Bottomless Pit. No creature of our world had ever swum its
lethal ebb and flow, but on the nights of the great Sabbaths, when
the wizardry of all Italy swept to its beetling cliffs as to their
Holiest of Holies, its waters eructed to the rendezvous the retinue
of Hell—the wealth of an argosy would not have tempted a Lombard to
venture within eye-shot of it after nightfall. Who, then, are these
two men of mortal mould that outstare the depths of the Bottomless
Lake itself, and not only that but from the very horns of the Altar
of the Black Mass, and not only that, but at the witching hour
forsooth of night, when graveyards yawn, and the everlasting doors
of Tophet open wide? Their guardian angels of good have surely
turned from their right hands, and their evil guardians of the left
are grinning from horn to horn. With the chime of twelve from the
distant steeple dies out the last echo of admonition, and they
begin to work out such unhallowed errand as alone can have brought
them to so damned a spot; the elder of the two in a tone of hushed
solemnity addresses a series of questions to the younger, who
responds to them with an equally awful gravity, after the manner of
a catechism."Dost know me who I am?""Tosca of Venice, bravo and poisoner.""And Yourself?""Janko the Illyrian, bravo with a right good will, but not
yet poisoner.""My ancestry?""Sorcerer stock, whose secrets you would fain have inherited
and their trade pursued.""Why did I not?""The Council of Ten bore down upon your race, and but for
your extreme youth you yourself would have crossed the Bridge of
Sighs. Orphaned by the State, and retaining for sole inheritance
the swashing blade that still gnaws at your scabbard, and a few
recipes for poisons (which last, however, were worth a Borgia's
envy), you soon found yourself compelled to use both the one and
the other to buy you bed and board. Proceeding at first with
hesitancy, and never sojourning long in one locality, you became by
degrees the repository of so many family secrets that at the
present day you may stalk assured through the length and breadth of
Italy, and ruffle it in what company you will.""And your own story?""I know not by what catastrophe the memory of all my earliest
years was shaken loose from me. Suffice it then, that once on a
visit to my native country you found me wandering an orphan like
yourself, and with a mind so blank that you appropriated it
instantly to write on it as it were your own ten commandments.
Since that day I have never left you, and I am only repeating what
you yourself tell me when I say that you have made me your equal
master in every trick of fence. But of that other art of yours that
rivals the Creator, my most dutiful entreaties have never availed
with you to teach me anything.""But did I not reasonably argue that you would better attend
the heaviness of so terrific a responsibility, until you were of
man's estate? And is not to-day the anniversary of your coming of
age? And have we not pelted hither hot-foot from the confines of
the land upon that very business?""It is true that before entrusting me with even the least of
these your ancient awful secrets you have brought me here
to-night—for what?""To enter you with fitting state upon the bead-roll of that
glorious mystery, that with the mere putting on of a glove, or
sniffing of a flower can check the most rebellious blood with a
thus far shall thou flow, but no farther!""Say, rather to better the assurance that you have of me
already from years of fraternal familiar common life, by laying
upon me in addition a binding bond ensanctified by centuries of
warlock use, and now to be imposed in this very spot where the
Master whom thereby we both shall serve is at this hour present,
though to us invisible, the Prince of the Power of the
Air.""You are at any rate resolved to link yourself to me with
fetters forged in the fire that is not quenched, and by a testament
registered in the Chancery of Hell to the effect that any treachery
from one of us to the other shall be resented and avenged by that
common Master of ours who hears us at this moment from his postern
gate, the Bottomless Lake below?""I am resolved to that for which I came here.""Follow, then, with me the observance of that visible sign
and token that unites us in one blood and in one flesh. This horn
is from that beast whose form our Master loves to take, when from
this altar where we stand he greets his liegemen and his
liege-women turned backward like his prayers. This horn I charge to
the half with my own blood, obtained by the biting of my arm. Now
do you likewise bite and fill and then drink (to my health) the
moiety of the draught so mixed.""May you live till the Last Trump!""You have pledged me in it as I now pledge you, and there
remains but one more ceremony. I am about to throw this emptied
receptacle into the waters of the Bottomless Lake. You know already
that everything that touches its surface, whether living or dead,
is forfeit to that Ancient of Days that crouches in wait below. Do
you agree that this will be the fate reserved for that one of us
two that shall first contravene this super-sacred
oath?""His soul be the devil's fee."The emptied horn shot like an elf-bolt into the pathless
waters of the Bottomless Lake. The benighted pair that watched it
from the unhallowed shrine above could have sworn that a hand came
up and caught it as it fell, but a sudden flash of lightning that
snapped in their eyes and a peal of thunder that made the four
corners of the earth to quake rendered that fact uncertain. The
strangers would then have been only too gladly drenched to the skin
that they might have hugged their wagered souls in the belief that
this unweather was of Nature, and not of the Evil One. But the
Heavens shed no tear. There succeeded to that single flash and
single peal only the same deadly calm that had preceded them.
Although their business there was over, neither of the two men
cared to suggest to the other his secret persuasion that there was
no need for further stay. One o'clock whispered from afar its holy
amen to their accursed ritual. Other hours flitted by, and still
they gazed into unplummeted waves enwrapped in gloom as in their
cloaks. At last as it were by a simultaneous impulse they turned
together, and with a mutual sigh descended in the direction of the
dawning city. From what has been said of the superstitious awe with
which the Bottomless Lake was regarded, it will be readily
understood that they had to traverse a considerable distance of
uninhabited country before coming in sight of the main travelled
road.When at last after the painful up and down of many hills,
they perceived the highway cutting through a valley at their feet,
the habitual reserve engendered by their profession moved them to
await atop the passage of a carriage that appeared in sight in the
distance going towards the town rather than continue their journey,
and be passed by it. As it came nearer both these men who had
recently drunk so deeply of forbidden founts, suddenly uttered an
exclamation that sounded very like a fear. For they saw at the
self-same second that the coach contained a girl of beauty beyond a
sultan's dream, and that some dozen or so of foot-pads darted from
both sides of the road and seized the heads of her horses. The
report of a pistol was obviously connected with the fall of the
driver like a log from his box. The young lady was left with no
other defender than a large black dog that ran behind the carriage,
but as the assailants threw the doors open and hustled her out it
became apparent that he was chained to the vehicle, and in an
instant they were beyond his reach. But at this critical juncture
Tosca descended almost, as it seemed, to the startled abductors
with one leap from the heights above, and with a howl like a wild
beast.Although they did not know it, the finest sword player in
Europe was in their midst. They went down by couples before him,
spitted like larks. They had scarcely grasped the miracle of his
presence before the lovely vision of the coach was resting in his
left arm (the right still continuing to deal destruction), and she
had scarcely glanced at his face, when, with a sigh of evident
content with her defender, she hid her golden head in his breast to
shut out the shambles from her eyes. But the fight was already
past. Half the ravishers lay stretched upon the ground, and the
bravo of Venice needed no second or even first glance at them to
know that they would never rise again. The remainder, appalled by a
result which they were far from attributing to the purely human
agency which had caused it, had only to cast a look beneath his
black-a-vised brows, when with a shriek that he was signed in the
corner of his eye with the devil's private mark, they precipitately
fled. The bravo dropped his sword into its sheath, and now with
both arms round her waist he drew the goddess (as she appeared to
him) towards her carriage. In doing so he perceived that she had
fainted, and printed upon her lips the fiercest as it was the
chastest kiss that he had ever bestowed upon woman. By an
extraordinary chance (but there was more than chance in it), after
completing the foulest rite, he had stumbled upon the purest
passion of his life. For no other woman would he have shut the
carriage door as he did now after placing her within it, remaining
himself outside. And it is needful to add in this connexion that he
had entirely forgotten the very existence of that comrade just
bound to him by a tie indissoluble. That comrade, nevertheless, had
watched the whole from the altitude where both had first stood.
Could he have followed the giddy foot-hold of his patron he would
in that moment have slain him in his tracks. And that he could in
no wise stir from where he stood either previously to take part in
that chance medley, or now to snatch a share in the reward of it,
was due not at all to cowardice (a thing that must of necessity be
unknown to any that followed the fortunes of Tosca), but to a kind
of spell as he fancied that froze him to his place. And of this he
was indeed well qualified to judge since he had already experienced
the self-same sensation on one (and one only) former occasion. What
puzzled him was that the obvious cause in the prior case was a
certain amulet of unknown antiquity and power, which Tosca was
accustomed to wear round his neck upon a chain of gold, and which
in a moment of confidence he had shown that once to his pupil.
Whereas on the present occasion the cause of his vertigo could
scarcely be the same, the talisman being invisible. And yet the
effect was identical. If anything more than another had been the
actual moving cause of his present icy chill it must certainly be
the damsel of the coach. So unmistakeable was the hold which the
mere sight of her had taken upon him, that at the instant when
Tosca placed his lips upon hers (and they had never been touched
before by man), the surging up of jealousy burst the shackles of
the spell, and the Illyrian clattered down like an avalanche. He
reached the road at the important moment when his oblivious
partner, after shutting the door of the coach, was upon the point
of mounting the box to drive the young beauty he knew not whither.
Nor did it occur to him that he knew not. But at this precise
juncture his dream was shattered by the advent of the Illyrian
flashing fires of jealous heat from his eyes. So choked with it was
he that he could not speak, but only pointed with one hand to the
carriage while he clenched the other in Tosca's face. The Venetian
was equally taken aback by the sudden resurrection of one whose
presence in the world he had totally overlooked. How long they
would have stared at one another had nothing intervened it would be
impossible to say. They were heedless of the barking of the black
dog, since that had continued without intermission from the first
irruption of the bid-stands. But they were twitched bolt round in
the direction of the coach by a sudden crack of its wheels. Whether
the coachman had fallen from his box through a genuine belief that
he was hurt; or whether through an equally genuine desire not to
be; or, lastly, through collusion did not appear, but it was
sufficiently obvious that the fellow had not received a scratch.
Concluding the danger to be over he had now quietly reassumed his
post, and was driving off. He took no more notice of the other two
than if he had not seen them (which again might really have been
the case), and used his whip to such good purpose that the vehicle
was lost to sight (to memory dear) before the rivals had taken a
step to arrest its progress. Then burst the storm of mutual
recrimination. Tosca first spoke."Darkness and devils! You have robbed me of that for which I
would not leave whole the skin of any man alive.""'S death, kinsman, would you draw on me? Remember you not
the oath of some few hours ago? Are you already so anxious to tap
at that postern we both wot of? Knock then, and it shall be opened
unto you. Ho, you pale at this reminder, and suffer your hand to
drop from the hilt of that ancestral spit of yours.""You were well advised to speak before I had drawn, or you
would perchance have learned ere this that there are one or two
tricks of fence I never taught even to you.""Deceit upon deceit. You have always given me to understand
that there was absolutely nothing in that branch of our partnership
that you had not revealed to me. Perchance I shall ere long come
upon some other tit-bit churlishly rapt aside. But why do I chide
you for teaching me too little, when I had rather cause to weep
salt tears that you have fathered me too much? When you met me, I
had, as you have told me oft, a mind so blank that you could write
on it (and that was the attraction that led you to adopt me)
whatever kind of script you chose; And you chose to scribble the
Devil's A, B, C. It is through your corruption of my innocent youth
that I am unfit to-day to even look upon such as she who has just
escaped us (and there ruled her favouring star). And if you reply
that you have kept me till I was of age, unspotted from the worst
half of your villainies, I dare swear that I should not be far out
in conjecturing that regard for the safety of your body, rather
than for that of my soul, was the true reason why you have never
yet suffered me to wear the glass mask in your laboratories. And,
to crown all, you kissed her.""Did I kiss her? I thought it was a dream."Thus Tosca murmured softly to himself, his head falling upon
his breast, as if in communion with some saint. It was Janko who
this time broke the silence by clutching of his sword. But Tosca
looked up with a glance so diabolical, that he dropped it again at
once. By a motion of his hand, the Venetian, as it were compelled
him to seat himself by the side of the road; and, sitting quietly
beside him, commenced in the following strain:—"You make me laugh apart when you speak of my corrupting your
innocent youth. If you only knew the truth! Or, as you said just
now (God knows whether inspired by good or evil chance), if you
only knew that tit-bit rapt aside, as you thought, churlishly (when
you merely guessed at it), but in reality with more generosity,
than you will be decently able to thank me for (when you only know
the facts). Your innocent youth, indeed!! By the God above us, whom
we both fear, and neither serves, you will see by the story I am
about to tell you that I knew all the time and as I say with
generosity have concealed from you the nature of that catastrophe
that shook loose from you the memories of all your earliest years.
You will see that before your mind became a blank, I had read upon
it (tender as were your years) the lurid brand of Cain. You will
see that your brain was seared by your own atrocious hand, and that
my adoption of you afterwards was based on the calculation that for
a bravo and poisoner there could be in the whole round world no
better raw material than a matricide! Start not till you have heard
me out. I was in Illyria. Reasons which your experience of ups and
downs in our profession will readily enable you to appreciate had
caused me to retire (rather hurriedly, I confess) from the town
which I had honoured with my presence for some months. The same
reasons oblige me to travel in preference by night, and to secrete
myself by day. On the first occasion of my doing this latter, I
settled upon an apparently deserted hut in the trackless depths of
the forest. This hut consisted of a large front room (reaching to
the roof tree) for the accommodation of the two-footed, and a stall
at back for that of the four-footed creation. The latter did not
run so high as the front room, Inasmuch as it contained a loft for
fodder atop, and it was in this airy apartment that I decided to
take my siesta, since it had openings both upon the stables (if I
may so call it) and the front chamber, and my disposition as you
know is strategic. I had slept, I know not how long, when I was
awakened by a noise in front, and speedily ascertained that it was
caused by an altercation going on among visitors to the parlour. Do
not start till you have heard me out. One of the disputants was
yourself. The other, who occupied the only stool in the place, was
a grey-haired, blear-eyed female of considerable antiquity. I know
nothing of your accursed Illyrian jargon. But without understanding
the conversation I could see the beldame hugging to her withered
breast a jewel, small, but of great price, and withal slung upon a
golden chain. I tell you without hesitation that it was the same
amulet you have been shown by me upon a previous occasion,
foolishly as it happened, since it stirred you so profoundly as to
almost resurrect your buried remembrances. That it came into the
hands of your precious dame by some feat of robbery I have no doubt
whatever. How it came into mine you will presently see. Your
excited gesture, as it seemed to me, might afford me some clue to
the progress of the quarrel, which I presumed had arisen as to the
fate of your booty, but I had scarcely awakened up sufficiently to
pull my reasoning faculties together, when the whole thing ended in
an, even to me, unexpectedly horrible manner. You suddenly pushed a
pail (which stood hard by) beneath the back of the unsuspecting
crone, and flashing a hanger from under your rags you swept off her
grey head into the bucket with the single shearing stroke of a
seasoned cut-throat. Then throwing upon the floor the glittering
bauble of contention, you surprised me still more by swiftly
separating the hands and feet, then the arms at elbow, and the legs
at knee, then the stumps from the trunk, and finally the trunk
itself into smaller parcels. That moment, and to-day, are the two
occasions of my life upon which I have loathed my calling. By my
word and oath I was as sick as a dog upon the litter of your loft.
When I looked again you had cast down the weeping steel which had
been the unwilling instrument of your crime. Packing all the
sections in a kind of bag or sack you rolled it up compactly. Then
seizing the ensanguined pail in the hand that was not occupied by
that pitiful truss of what had just been humanity, you strode with
them both from the desecrated home, but how you disposed of your
burdens I neither know nor care. That you had loaded your
conscience with a grislier deed than it could bear, I soon had good
reason to know. Perturbed at my perturbation I had scrambled
toterra firma, and had
recovered myself sufficiently only to secure that amulet (which as
you know I still wear), when you re-entered empty handed in that
same state of idiocy, which moved me to overcome my distaste for
associates and adjoin you to myself in my profession. Besides, I
could not but admit (when once more fully myself) that you had
shown for it considerable vocation."The face of the Illyrian rolled with beads of sweat. For the
third time he was bound hard and fast by that same fascination
which already twice before had enthralled him. And as each time
before so again it was for a different cause. The first of these
two prior occasions resulted, as we know, from the sighting of the
amulet. The second on the sighting of the divinity of the coach.
But this third time was again different from the other two, in this
respect, that (although he would not have confessed it for all the
riches entombed in earth) he had now fully recognised the reason
and connexion of all three. He rose deliberately and
spoke:—"Now, you have told me, to suit your own purposes, a certain
amount of the truth, I remember to your confusion the details you
intentionally omitted. You lie in your throat when you say that
when I re-entered that room I was in the vacant state already. I
re-entered that room (and you know it) as sane as when I left it. I
found you standing there prepared with a glib story to the effect
that you were a stranger just stepped into the hut with the view of
seeing whether it was inhabited or not by anyone who could serve
you as a guide through the forest. Not knowing you so well as I do
now, I was simple enough to believe you. It never entered my head
that you could have witnessed the drama that had just been played,
nor did I think of the talisman in my momentary confusion at seeing
in the place a foreigner. I have now no doubt but that if I had
looked for it I should not have been able to find it. You diverted
my attention by inviting me to quaff from your spirit flask on the
plea that I looked unwell, as in truth I might, after the ordeal I
had just passed through. In my innocence (for I was innocent) I
accepted the draught, and the drug which you had placed in the
liquor beforehand destroyed my memory, never to return, until this
eventful day. Yet I think there was, however, one former occasion
which it just missed a return. That was when you showed me that
ill-omened amulet, and it awakened in me sentiment inexplicable
then, but which now I am no longer at a loss to understand. That
jewel was wrought by the science of my kinswoman, in whose hands
you surprised it—for my people, too, were of the ancient religion,
like your own, and sorcerers of the Black Side."At the commencement of this speech, Tosca seemed momentarily
disconcerted, but, as it continued, this sentiment was succeeded by
something very like prostration, and when he replied it was with
reverence."What a galliard this is, and how aright I guessed when I saw
in him the making of a master in my trade. I thought to dash him
with my revelation of a monstrosity among crimes. I was a fool,
indeed, to think that a younker would bleach over the dissection of
a granny, who had anointed him from his cradle with the grease of
unbaptised babes. But I failed, and there's an end on't, and now
sheer steel must decide the issue, for we meet on equal ground.
Equal do I say? Nay! the boy is my superior in callousness, for I
dearly loved my own old people, though I never say God rest their
souls."He rose, and both men laid their hands upon their hilts. One
of them had not very long to live. But before entering upon the
fateful lists, the Illyrian turned to speak again."In case you slay me, which I believe will not be the case
(for God does sometimes defend the right), I cannot forbear an
answer to your last taunt. You did not understand, and you have
never understood, and you never will understand the real meaning of
the scene you saw enacted in that room upon that day. I am not sure
whether it was a blessing or a curse upon our race that you did not
catch the drift of our remarks in our native language, which you
contemptuously term jargon. Had you done so the fate of all three
of us would have been better or worse, but at any rate far
different. The tortures of the Inquisition would not force from me
the secret, which was confided to me then by that ancient lady whom
you saw me slay indeed, but only after her own repeated prayers and
instructions. I shudder to think what has become of her remains
which she entrusted to my pious care, and which for your accursed
interference I have been unwillingly prevented from attending to. I
know, indeed, the fate of her other legacy (for the amulet was a
legacy that you thought a theft); but it is now too late (again
through your accursed interference) for me to make such use of that
knowledge as she had enjoined upon me to do. But to you (who know
nothing of its use and profit) it shall hang as a millstone round
your neck, and whether you live or whether you die it shall
infallibly sink you now or hereafter to the undiscovered bottom of
that Bottomless Lake whose source we both do know. And whichever of
us falls shall by the terms of that enactment (of so short a while
ago) be resented and avenged by that Master of ours, who waits even
at this moment for that most unhappy man."