Captain Kyd Volume Ii Part 18

The sorceress gradually released her grasp as he continued, and, when he had ended, said,

"'Tis well. Go."

"The amulet?"

"Nay. Thou shalt not have it," she said, firmly.

"By the rood! if thou give it not to me, I will wring thy shrivelled neck for thee," he cried, with sudden impetuosity.

"Lay but the tip o' your least finger upon me, Robert Kyd, that moment shall thy arm be palsied to its shoulder, and thy strength leave thy body, till the infant an hour old shall master thee!"

She stepped back as she spoke, and extended her wand towards him with a menacing gesture.

"Nay, nay, fearful woman," he cried, betraying some alarm at her words and threatening att.i.tude, "I meant not to anger thee. Wilt give the amulet? I cannot go forth on this mission of revenge without it. I know its mysterious and wonderful power, and must avail myself of it on this occasion. Thou shalt have it after."

The sorceress looked troubled at his eager anxiety to possess the mystic seal, and at length said, in a solemn tone of voice, and with a manner calculated to have its effect on an imagination the least tinged with superst.i.tion,

"Mortal, thou knowest not what thou seekest! If he who wears this on his breast fail in his last trial of its mystic power, he shall become the slayer of the mother who bore him!"

"What is this to me? I have no mother, sorceress."

"Ha! well, no, no! thou hast not!" she said, with a singular expression.

"Yet such is the doom of him in whose hands it fails. _Thou_ shalt not wear it!"

"I will. If I tear it from thee by violence!"

"'Twill then do thee no good. It must be placed around thy neck with solemn rites. Thou shalt have it," she said, suddenly, after a moment's thought, "for thy success is my success. The risk shall be run by me!

Hast thou the nerve to go through the initiating rites?"

"I will stop at nothing. Give it me, with every h.e.l.lish charm thou canst invent. Once my revenge accomplished, take it back."

"But _He_'ll not give thee back the price thou payest for it."

"Ha! Well, be it so! I will not ask it. My soul is as well in the devil's keeping as in my own. The world beyond has for me neither hopes nor fears. My present aims accomplished, I care not for the bugbear future! In the name of the master whom thou servest, give me the amulet!"

"I obey," she said, with wild solemnity. "Slave, appear!"

She cast, as she spoke, a powder upon the flame, which shot up to the roof and filled the place with so dazzling a brilliancy that for an instant he was deprived of sight. The light sunk as suddenly as it had risen, and he saw before him a tall, skeleton-like figure, over whose face played an unearthly glare from the smouldering flame beneath the caldron. It was the slave Cusha. The pirate chief gazed on the hideous being with horror; his sword dropped from his grasp, and an exclamation in the shape of an exorcism escaped his lips. The sorceress witnessed his alarm with a triumphant smile; she then touched and turned her spindle, while the slave, obedient to her nod, kneeled and began to kindle the flame and stir the seething caldron.

The bucanier witnessed these preparations with curiosity not unmingled with dread, yet nevertheless determined to abide by the issue. All at once she began to chant: now in a low, deep voice, now in a high, shrill key, as her words required, the slave at intervals chiming in in a tone so deep and sepulchral that the startled bucanier could not believe that it was human, especially when his eyes rested on the hideous being from whom it proceeded, who grovelled on the earth at his feet.

WITCH (_to the wizard_).

"Kindle, kindle!"

BOTH.

"To our tasks!"

WITCH (_whirling the spindle_).

"Turn the spindle!

Mortal asks A web of proof From charmed woof!"

WIZARD.

"The pledge, the pledge?"

WITCH.

"Body and soul To _his_ control, The pledge, the pledge!"

WIZARD.

"The seal, the seal?"

WITCH.

"A bleeding lock Of the victim's hair Given to earth, sea, Sky, and air, The seal, the seal!"

As the sorceress chanted this she broke from the thread what she had wound off, and, approaching him, chanted,

"Kneel, mortal, kneel!

And let me sever The pledge that makes thee _His_ for ever!"

He kneeled before her with the obedient submission of a child. She then entwined her fingers in a long lock that grew above the left temple, and, drawing from her bosom a dagger, held it above his head and chanted,

"Dost thou believe, Robert Kyd, Robert Kyd, Nor earth nor air, water nor fire, Ball nor steel, nor mortal ire, My potent charm Have power to harm Till it fulfil its destiny?"

"I do."

"Dost thou believe, Robert Kyd, Robert Kyd, That within, without, body and soul, This amulet shall keep thee whole From ball and steel, And mortal ill, Till thou fulfil thy destiny?"

"I do."

"Thus I take the seal and pledge, That, soul and body, thou engage, When thy master calls for thee, Ready, ready thou wilt be."

She severed the lock of hair from his temples as she ceased, and commenced dividing it into four equal parts. When she had done so she stepped backward, and, standing in the att.i.tude of a priestess about to perform an idolatrous sacrifice, cast a lock into the air, chanting in the same wild manner,

"Prince of Air! take the pledge!"

As she ceased a gust of wind swept over the islet, as if, so it appeared to the imagination of the excited victim of the rites, acknowledging the sacrifice. She then cast a lock upon the ground and chanted,

"Prince of Earth! take the pledge!"

Instantly the ground on which he stood seemed to tremble; he heard a deep rumbling as if in caverns beneath; and the little island appeared to shake as if an earthquake had answered the appeal.

"Prince of Sea! take the pledge!"