The Witch of Prague Part 15

"You seem a little nervous," he observed calmly. "What do you want of me?"

"Your help, man, and quickly! Call your people! Have him carried upstairs! Revive him! do something to bring him back!"

Keyork's voice changed.

"Is he in real danger?" he asked. "What have you done to him?"

"Oh, I do not know what I have done!" cried Unorna desperately. "I do not know what I fear----"

She let him go and leaned against the doorway, covering her face with her hands. Keyork stared at her. He had never seen her show so much emotion before. Then he made up his mind. He drew her into his room and left her standing and staring at him while he thrust a few objects into his pockets and threw his fur coat over him.

"Stay here till I come back," he said, authoritatively, as he went out.

"But you will bring him here?" she cried, suddenly conscious of his going.

The door had already closed. She tried to open it, in order to follow him, but she could not. The lock was of an unusual kind, and either intentionally or accidentally Keyork had shut her in. For a few moments she tried to force the springs, shaking the heavy wood work a very little in the great effort she made. Then, seeing that it was useless, she walked slowly to the table and sat down in Keyork's chair.

She had been in the place before, and she was as free from any unpleasant fear of the dead company as Keyork himself. To her, as to him, they were but specimens, each having a peculiar interest, as a thing, but all dest.i.tute of that individuality, of that grim, latent malice, of that weird, soulless, physical power to harm, with which timid imaginations endow dead bodies.

She scarcely gave them a glance, and she certainly gave them no thought.

She sat before the table, supporting her head in her hands and trying to think connectedly of what had just happened. She knew well enough how the Wanderer had lain upon the frozen ground, his head supported on her knee, while the watchman had gone to call a carriage. She remembered how she had summoned all her strength and had helped to lift him in, as few women could have done. She remembered every detail of the place, and everything she had done, even to the fact that she had picked up his hat and a stick he had carried and had taken them into the vehicle with her.

The short drive through the ill-lighted streets was clear to her. She could still feel the pressure of his shoulder as he had leaned heavily against her; she could see the pale face by the fitful light of the lanterns as they pa.s.sed, and of the lamps that flashed in front of the carriage with each jolting of the wheels over the rough paving-stones.

She remembered exactly what she had done, her efforts to wake him, at first regular and made with the certainty of success, then more and more mad as she realised that something had put him beyond the sphere of her powers for the moment, if not for ever; his deathly pallor, his chilled hands, his unnatural stillness--she remembered it all, as one remembers circ.u.mstances in real life a moment after they have taken place. But there remained also the recollection of a single moment during which her whole being had been at the mercy of an impression so vivid that it seemed to stand alone divested of any outward sensations by which to measure its duration. She, who could call up visions in the minds of others, who possessed the faculty of closing her bodily eyes in order to see distant places and persons in the state of trance, she, who expected no surprises in her own act, had seen something very vividly, which she could not believe had been a reality, and which she yet could not account for as a revelation of second sight. That dark, mysterious presence that had come bodily, yet without a body, between her and the man she loved was neither a real woman, nor the creation of her own brain, nor a dream seen in hypnotic state. She had not the least idea how long it had stood there; it seemed an hour, and it seemed but a second. But that incorporeal thing had a life and a power of its own.

Never before had she felt that unearthly chill run through her, nor that strange sensation in her hair. It was a thing of evil omen, and the presage was already about to be fulfilled. The spirit of the dark woman had arisen at the sound of the words in which he denied her; she had risen and had come to claim her own, to rob Unorna of what seemed most worth coveting on earth--and she could take him, surely, to the place whence she came. How could Unorna tell that he was not already gone, that his spirit had not pa.s.sed already, even when she was lifting his weight from the ground?

At the despairing thought she started and looked up. She had almost expected to see that shadow beside her again. But there was nothing.

The lifeless bodies stood motionless in their mimicry of life under the bright light. The swarthy negro frowned, the face of the Malayan woman wore still its calm and gentle expression. Far in the background the rows of gleaming skulls grinned, as though at the memory of their four hundred lives; the skeleton of the orang-outang stretched out its long bony arms before it; the dead savages still squatted round the remains of their meal. The stillness was oppressive.

Unorna rose to her feet in sudden anxiety. She did not know how long she had been alone. She listened anxiously at the door for the sound of footsteps on the stairs, but all was silent. Surely, Keyork had not taken him elsewhere, to his lodgings, where he would not be cared for.

That was impossible. She must have heard the sound of the wheels as the carriage drove away. She glanced at the windows and saw that the cas.e.m.e.nts were covered with small, thick curtains which would muzzle the sound. She went to the nearest, thrust the curtain aside, opened the inner and the second gla.s.s and looked out. Though the street below was dim, she could see well enough that the carriage was no longer there.

It was the bitterest night of the year and the air cut her like a knife, but she would not draw back. She strained her sight in both directions, searching in the gloom for the moving lights of a carriage, but she saw nothing. At last she shut the window and went back to the door. They must be on the stairs, or still below, perhaps, waiting for help to carry him up. The cold might kill him in his present state, a cold that would kill most things exposed to it. Furiously she shook the door. It was useless. She looked about for an instrument to help her strength.

She could see nothing--no--yes--there was the iron-wood club of the black giant. She went and took it from his hand. The dead thing trembled all over, and rocked as though it would fall, and wagged its great head at her, but she was not afraid. She raised the heavy club and struck upon the door, upon the lock, upon the panels with all her might. The terrible blows sent echoes down the staircase, but the door did not yield, nor the lock either. Was the door of iron and the lock of granite? she asked herself. Then she heard a strange, sudden noise behind her. She turned and looked. The dead negro had fallen bodily from his pedestal to the floor, with a dull, heavy thud. She did not desist, but struck the oaken planks again and again with all her strength. Then her arms grew numb and she dropped the club. It was all in vain. Keyork had locked her in and had taken the Wanderer away.

She went back to her seat and fell into an att.i.tude of despair. The reaction from the great physical efforts she had made overcame her. It seemed to her that Keyork's only reason for taking him away must be that he was dead. Her head throbbed and her eyes began to burn. The great pa.s.sion had its will of her and stabbed her through and through with such pain as she had never dreamed of. The horror of it all was too deep for tears, and tears were by nature very far from her eyes at all times.

She pressed her hands to her breast and rocked herself gently backwards and forwards. There was no reason left in her. To her there was no reason left in anything if he were gone. And if Keyork Arabian could not cure him, who could? She knew now what that old prophecy had meant, when they had told her that love would come but once, and that the chief danger of her life lay in a mistake on that decisive day. Love had indeed come upon her like a whirlwind, he had flashed upon her like the lightning, she had tried to grasp him and keep him, and he was gone again--for ever. Gone through her own fault, through her senseless folly in trying to do by art what love would have done for himself. Blind, insensate, mad! She cursed herself with unholy curses, and her beautiful face was strained and distorted. With unconscious fingers she tore at her heavy hair until it fell about her like a curtain. In the raging thirst of a great grief for tears that would not flow she beat her bosom, she beat her face, she struck with her white forehead the heavy table before her, she grasped her own throat, as though she would tear the life out of herself. Then again her head fell forward and her body swayed regularly to and fro, and low words broke fiercely from her trembling lips now and then, bitter words of a wild, strong language in which it is easier to curse than to bless. As the sudden love that had in a few hours taken such complete possession of her was boundless, so its consequences were illimitable. In a nature strange to fear, the fear for another wrought a fearful revolution. Her anger against herself was as terrible as her fear for him she loved was paralysing. The instinct to act, the terror lest it should be too late, the impossibility of acting at all so long as she was imprisoned in the room, all three came over her at once.

The mechanical effort of rocking her body from side to side brought no rest; the blow she struck upon her breast in her frenzy she felt no more than the oaken door had felt those she had dealt it with the club. She could not find even the soothing antidote of bodily pain for her intense moral suffering. Again the time pa.s.sed without her knowing or guessing of its pa.s.sage.

Driven to desperation she sprang at last from her seat and cried aloud.

"I would give my soul to know that he is safe!"

The words had not died away when a low groan pa.s.sed, as it were, round the room. The sound was distinctly that of a human voice, but it seemed to come from all sides at once. Unorna stood still and listened.

"Who is in this room?" she asked in loud clear tones.

Not a breath stirred. She glanced from one specimen to another, as though suspecting that among the dead some living being had taken a disguise. But she knew them all. There was nothing new to her there. She was not afraid. Her pa.s.sion returned.

"My soul!--yes!" she cried again, leaning heavily on the table, "I would give it if I could know, and it would be little enough!"

Again that awful sound filled the room, and rose now almost to a wail and died away.

Unorna's brow flushed angrily. In the direct line of her vision stood the head of the Malayan woman, its soft, embalmed eyes fixed on hers.

"If there are people hidden here," cried Unorna fiercely, "let them show themselves! let them face me! I say it again--I would give my immortal soul!"

This time Unorna saw as well as heard. The groan came, and the wail followed it and rose to a shriek that deafened her. And she saw how the face of the Malayan woman changed; she saw it move in the bright lamp-light, she saw the mouth open. Horrified, she looked away. Her eyes fell upon the squatting savages--their heads were all turned towards her, she was sure that she could see their shrunken chests heave as they took breath to utter that terrible cry again and again; even the fallen body of the African stirred on the floor, not five paces from her. Would their shrieking never stop? All of them--every one--even to the white skulls high up in the case; not one skeleton, not one dead body that did not mouth at her and scream and moan and scream again.

Unorna covered her ears with her hands to shut out the hideous, unearthly noise. She closed her eyes lest she should see those dead things move. Then came another noise. Were they descending from their pedestals and cases and marching upon her, a heavy-footed company of corpses?

Fearless to the last, she dropped her hands and opened her eyes.

"In spite of you all," she cried defiantly, "I will give my soul to have him safe!"

Something was close to her. She turned and saw Keyork Arabian at her elbow. There was an odd smile on his usually unexpressive face.

"Then give me that soul of yours, if you please," he said. "He is quite safe and peacefully asleep. You must have grown a little nervous while I was away."

CHAPTER X

Unorna let herself sink into a chair. She stared almost vacantly at Keyork, then glanced uneasily at the motionless specimens, then stared at him again.

"Yes," she said at last. "Perhaps I was a little nervous. Why did you lock me in? I would have gone with you. I would have helped you."

"An accident--quite an accident," answered Keyork, divesting himself of his fur coat. "The lock is a peculiar one, and in my hurry I forgot to show you the trick of it."

"I tried to get out," said Unorna with a forced laugh. "I tried to break the door down with a club. I am afraid I have hurt one of your specimens."

She looked about the room. Everything was in its usual position, except the body of the African. She was quite sure that when she had head that unearthly cry, the dead faces had all been turned towards her.

"It is no matter," replied Keyork in a tone of indifference which was genuine. "I wish somebody would take my collection off my hands. I should have room to walk about without elbowing a failure at every step."

"I wish you would bury them all," suggested Unorna, with a slight shudder.

Keyork looked at her keenly.

"Do you mean to say that those dead things frightened you?" he asked incredulously.

"No; I do not. I am not easily frightened. But something odd happened--the second strange thing that has happened this evening. Is there any one concealed in this room?"

"Not a rat--much less a human being. Rats dislike creosote and corrosive sublimate, and as for human beings----"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"Then I have been dreaming," said Unorna, attempting to look relieved.

"Tell me about him. Where is he?"