Author: Arthur Machen
Category: Fiction
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NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER.
My name is Leicester; my father. Major General Wyn Leicester, adistinguished officer of artillery, succumbed five years ago to acomplicated liver complaint acquired in the deadly climate of India. Ayear later my only brother, Francis, came home after an exceptionallybrilliant career at the University, and settled down with the resolutionof a hermit to master what has been well called the great legend of thelaw. He was a man who seemed to live in utter indifference to everythingthat is called pleasure; and though he was handsomer than most men, andcould talk as merrily and wittily as if he were a mere vagabond, heavoided society, and shut himself up in a large room at the top of thehouse to make himself a lawyer. Ten hours a day of hard reading was atfirst his allotted portion; from the first light in the east to the lateafternoon he remained shut up with his books, taking a hasty half-hour'slunch with me as if he grudged the wasting of the moments, and going outfor a short walk when it began to grow dusk. I thought that suchrelentless application must be injurious, and tried to cajole him fromthe crabbed text-books; but his ardor seemed to grow rather thandiminish, and his daily tale of hours increased. I spoke to himseriously, suggesting some occasional relaxation, if it were but an idleafternoon with a harmless novel; but he laughed, and said that he readabout feudal tenures when he felt in need of amusement, and scoffed atthe notion of theatres, or a month's fresh confessed that he lookedwell, and seemed not to suffer from his labors; but I knew that suchunnatural toil would take revenge at last, and I was not mistaken. Alook of anxiety began to lurk about his eyes, and he seemed languid, andat last he avowed that he was no longer in perfect health; he wastroubled, he said, with a sensation of dizziness, and awoke now and thenof nights from fearful dreams, terrified and cold with icy sweats. "I amtaking care of myself," he said; "so you must not trouble. I passed thewhole of yesterday afternoon in idleness, leaning back in thatcomfortable chair you gave me, and scribbling nonsense on a sheet ofpaper. No, no; I will not overdo my work. I shall be well enough in aweek or two, depend upon it."
Yet, in spite of his assurances, I could see that he grew no better, butrather worse; he would enter the drawing-room with a face all miserablywrinkled and despondent, and endeavor to look gayly when my eyes fell onhim, and I thought such symptoms of evil omen, and was frightenedsometimes at the nervous irritation of his movements, and at glanceswhich I could not decipher. Much against his will, I prevailed on him tohave medical advice, and with an ill grace he called in our old doctor.
Dr. Haberden cheered me after his examination of his patient.
"There is nothing really much amiss," he said to me. "No doubt he readstoo hard, and eats hastily, and then goes back again to his books in toogreat a hurry; and the natural consequence is some digestive trouble,and a little mischief in the nervous system. But I think--I do, indeed,Miss Leicester--that we shall be able to set this all right. I havewritten him a prescription which ought to do great things. So you haveno cause for anxiety."
My brother insisted on having the prescription made up by a chemist inthe neighborhood; it was an odd old-fashioned shop, devoid of thestudied coquetry and calculated glitter that make so gay a show on thecounters and shelves of the modern apothecary; but Francis liked the oldchemist, and believed in the scrupulous purity of his drugs. Themedicine was sent in due course, and I saw that my brother took itregularly after lunch and dinner. It was an innocent-looking whitepowder, of which a little was dissolved, in a glass of cold water. Istirred it in, and it seemed to disappear, leaving the water clear andcolorless. At first Francis seemed to benefit greatly; the wearinessvanished from his face, and he became more cheerful than he had everbeen since the time when he left school; he talked gayly of reforminghimself, and avowed to me that he had wasted his time.
"I have given too many hours to law," he said, laughing; "I think youhave saved me in the nick of time. Come, I shall be Lord Chancellor yet,but I must not forget life. You and I will have a holiday togetherbefore long; we will go to Paris and enjoy ourselves, and keep away fromthe Bibliotheque Nationale."
I confessed myself delighted with the prospect.
"When shall we go?" I said. "I can start the day after to-morrow, if youlike."
"Ah, that is perhaps a little too soon; after all, I do not know Londonyet, and I suppose a man ought to give the pleasures of his own countrythe first choice. But we will go off together in a week or two, so tryand furbish up your French. I only know law French myself, and I amafraid that wouldn't do."
We were just finishing dinner, and he quaffed off his medicine with aparade of carousal as if it had been wine from some choicest bin.
"Has it any particular taste?" I said.
"No; I should not know I was not drinking water," and he got up from hischair, and began to pace up and down the room as if he were undecided asto what he should do next.
"Shall we have coffee in the drawing-room," I said, "or would you liketo smoke?"
"No; I think I will take a turn, it seems a pleasant evening. Look atthe afterglow; why, it is as if a great city were burning in flames, anddown there between the dark houses it is raining blood fast, fast. Yes,I will go out. I may be in soon, but I shall take my key, so good-night,dear, if I don't see you again."
The door slammed behind him, and I saw him walk lightly down the street,swinging his malacca cane, and I felt grateful to Dr. Haberden for suchan improvement.
I believe my brother came home very late that night; but he was in amerry mood the next morning.
"I walked on without thinking where I was going," he said, "enjoying thefreshness of the air, and livened by the crowds as I reached morefrequented quarters. And then I met an old college friend, Orford, inthe press of the pavement, and then--well, we enjoyed ourselves. I havefelt what it is to be young and a man, I find I have blood in my veins,as other men have. I made an appointment with Orford for to-night; therewill be a little party of us at the restaurant. Yes, I shall enjoymyself for a week or two, and hear the chimes at midnight, and then wewill go for our little trip together."
Such was the transmutation of my brother's character that in a few dayshe became a lover of pleasure, a careless and merry idler of westernpavements, a hunter out of snug restaurants, and a fine critic offantastic dancing; he grew fat before my eyes, and said no more ofParis, for he had clearly found his Paradise in London. I rejoiced, andyet wondered a little, for there was, I thought, something in his gayetythat indefinitely displeased me, though I could not have defined myfeeling. But by degrees there came a change; he returned still in thecold, hours of the morning, but I heard no more about his pleasures, andone morning as we sat at breakfast together, I looked suddenly into hiseyes and saw a stranger before me.
"Oh, Francis!" I cried; "Oh, Francis, Francis, what have you done?" andrending sobs cut the words short, and I went weeping out of the room,for though I knew nothing, yet I knew all, and by some odd play ofthought I remembered the evening when he first went abroad to prove hismanhood, and the picture of the sunset sky glowed before me; the cloudslike a city in burning flames, and the rain of blood. Yet I did battlewith such thoughts, resolving that perhaps, after all, no great harmhad been done, and in the evening at dinner I resolved to press him tofix a day for our holiday in Paris. We had talked easily enough, and mybrother had just taken his medicine, which he had continued all thewhile. I was about to begin my topic, when the words forming in my mindvanished, and I wondered for a second what icy and intolerable weightoppressed my heart and suffocated me as with the unutterable horror ofthe coffin-lid nailed down on the living.
We had dined without candles, and the room had slowly grown fromtwilight to gloom, and the walls and corners were indistinct in theshadow. But from where I sat I looked out into the street; and as Ithought of what I would say to Francis, the sky began to flush andshine, as it had done on a well-remembered evening, and in the gapbetween two dark masses that were houses an awful pageantry of flameappeared. Lurid whorls of writhed cloud, and utter depths burning,
andgray masses like the fume blown from a smoking city, and an evil gloryblazing far above shot with tongues of more ardent fire, and below as ifthere were a deep pool of blood. I looked down to where my brother satfacing me, and the words were shaped on my lips, when I saw his handresting on the table. Between the thumb and forefinger of the closedhand, there was a mark, a small patch about the size of a sixpence, andsomewhat of the color of a bad bruise. Yet, by some sense I cannotdefine, I knew that what I saw was no bruise at all. Oh, if human fleshcould burn with flame, and if flame could be black as pitch, such wasthat before me! Without thought or fashioning of words, gray horrorshaped within me at the sight, and in an inner cell it was known to be abrand. For a moment the stained sky became dark as midnight, and whenthe light returned to me, I was alone in the silent room, and soon afterI heard my brother go out.
Late as it was, I put on my bonnet and went to Dr. Haberden, and in hisgreat consulting-room, ill-lighted by a candle which the doctor broughtin with him, with stammering lips, and a voice that would break in spiteof my resolve, I told him all; from the day on which my brother began totake the medicine down to the dreadful thing I had seen scarcely half anhour before.
When I had done, the doctor looked at me for a minute with an expressionof great pity on his face.
"My dear Miss Leicester," he said, "you have evidently been anxiousabout your brother; you have been worrying over him, I am sure. Come,now, is it not so?
"I have certainly been anxious," I said. "For the last week or two Ihave not felt at ease."
"Quite so; you know, of course, what a queer thing the brain is?"
"I understand what you mean; but I was not deceived. I saw what I havetold you with my own eyes."
"Yes, yes, of course. But your eyes had been staring at that verycurious sunset we had to-night. That is the only explanation. You willsee it in the proper light to-morrow, I am sure. But, remember, I amalways ready to give any help that is in my power; do not scruple tocome to me, or to send for me if you are in any distress."
I went away but little comforted, all confusion and terror and sorrow,not knowing where to turn. When my brother and I met the next day, Ilooked quickly at him, and noticed, with a sickening at heart, that theright hand, the hand on which I had clearly seen the patch as of a blackfire, was wrapped up with a handkerchief.
"What is the matter with your hand, Francis?" I said in a steady voice.
"Nothing of consequence. I cut a finger last night, and it bled ratherawkwardly, so I did it up roughly to the best of my ability."
"I will do it neatly for you, if you like."
"No, thank you, dear, this will answer very well. Suppose we havebreakfast; I am quite hungry."
We sat down, and I watched him. He scarcely ate or drank at all, buttossed his meat to the dog when he thought my eyes were turned away; andthere was a look in his eyes that I had never yet seen, and the thoughtfled across my mind that it was a look that was scarcely human. I wasfirmly convinced that awful and incredible as was the thing I had seenthe night before, yet it was no illusion, no glamour of bewilderedsense, and in the course of the morning I went again to the doctor'shouse.
He shook his head with an air puzzled and incredulous, and seemed toreflect for a few minutes.
"And you say he still keeps up the medicine? But why? As I understand,all the symptoms he complained of have disappeared long ago; why shouldhe go on taking the stuff when he is quite well? And by the bye wheredid he get it made up? At Sayce's? I never send any one there; the oldman is getting careless. Suppose you come with me to the chemist's; Ishould like to have some talk with him."
We walked together to the shop. Old Sayce knew Dr. Haberden, and wasquite ready to give any information.
"You have been sending that in to Mr. Leicester for some weeks, I think,on my prescription," said the doctor, giving the old man a pencilledscrap of paper.
The chemist put on his great spectacles with trembling uncertainty, andheld up the paper with a shaking hand.
"Oh, yes," he said, "I have very little of it left; it is rather anuncommon drug, and I have had it in stock some time. I must get in somemore, if Mr. Leicester goes on with it."
"Kindly let me have a look at the stuff," said Haberden; and the chemistgave him a glass bottle. He took out the stopper and smelt the contents,and looked strangely at the old man.
"Where did you get this?" he said, "and what is it? For one thing, Mr.Sayce, it is not what I prescribed. Yes, yes, I see the label is rightenough, but I tell you this is not the drug."
"I have had it a long time," said the old man, in feeble terror. "I gotit from Burbage's in the usual way. It is not prescribed often, and Ihave had it on the shelf for some years. You see there is very littleleft."
"You had better give it to me," said Haberden. "I am afraid somethingwrong has happened."
We went out of the shop in silence, the doctor carrying the bottleneatly wrapped in paper under his arm.
"Dr. Haberden," I said when we had walked a little way--"Dr. Haberden."
"Yes," he said, looking at me gloomily enough.
"I should like you to tell me what my brother has been taking twice aday for the last month or so."
"Frankly, Miss Leicester, I don't know. We will speak of this when weget to my house,"
We walked on quickly without another word till we reached Dr.Haberden's. He asked me to sit down, and began pacing up and down theroom, his face clouded over, as I could see, with no common fears.
"Well," he said at length, "this is all very strange; it is only naturalthat you should feel alarmed, and I must confess that my mind is farfrom easy. We will put aside, if you please, what you told me last nightand this morning, but the fact remains that for the last few weeks Mr.Leicester has been impregnating his system with a drug which iscompletely unknown to me. I tell you, it is not what I ordered; and whatthat stuff in the bottle really is remains to be seen."
He undid the wrapper, and cautiously tilted a few grains of the whitepowder on to a piece of paper, and peered curiously at it.
"Yes," he said, "it is like the sulphate of quinine, as you say; it isflaky. But smell it."
He held the bottle to me, and I bent over it. It was a strange sicklysmell, vaporous and overpowering, like some strong anaesthetic.
"I shall have it analyzed," said Haberden. "I have a friend who hasdevoted his whole life to chemistry as a science. Then we shall havesomething to go upon. No, no, say no more about that other matter; Icannot listen to that, and take my advice and think no more about ityourself."
That evening my brother did not go out as usual after dinner.
"I have had my fling," he said with a queer laugh; "and I must go backto my old ways. A little law will be quite a relaxation after so sharp adose of pleasure," and he grinned to himself, and soon after went up tohis room. His hand was still all bandaged.
Dr. Haberden called a few days later.
"I have no special news to give you," he said. "Chambers is out of town,so I know no more about that stuff than you do. But I should like to seeMr. Leicester if he is in."
"He is in his room," I said; "I will tell him you are here."
"No, no, I will go up to him; we will have a little quiet talk together.I dare say that we have made a good deal of fuss about very little; for,after all, whatever the white powder may be, it seems to have done himgood."
The doctor went upstairs, and standing in the hall I heard his knock,and the opening and shutting of the door; and then I waited in thesilent house for an hour, and the stillness grew more and more intenseas the hands of the clock crept round. Then there sounded from above thenoise of a door shut sharply, and the doctor was coming down the stairs.His footsteps crossed the hall, and there was a pause at the door. Idrew a long sick breath with difficulty, and saw my face white in alittle mirror, and he came in and stood at the door. There was anunutterable horror shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by holdingthe back of a chair with one hand, and his lower lip trembled li
ke ahorse's, and he gulped and stammered unintelligible sounds before hespoke.
"I have seen that man," he began in a dry whisper. "I have been sittingin his presence for the last hour. My God! and I am alive and in mysenses! I, who have dealt with death all my life, and have dabbled withthe melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. But not this! Oh, not this,"and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut out the sightof something before him.
"Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester," he said with more composure."I can do nothing in this house. Good-bye."
As I watched him totter down the steps and along the pavement towardshis house, it seemed to me that he had aged by ten years since themorning.
My brother remained in his room. He called out to me in a voice I hardlyrecognized, that he was very busy, and would like his meals brought tohis door and left there, and I gave the order to the servants. From thatday it seemed as if the arbitrary conception we call time had beenannihilated for me. I lived in an ever present sense of horror, goingthrough the routine of the house mechanically, and only speaking a fewnecessary words to the servants. Now and then I went out and paced thestreets for an hour or two and came home again; but whether I werewithout or within, my spirit delayed before the closed door of the upperroom, and, shuddering, waited for it to open. I have said that Iscarcely reckoned time, but I suppose it must have been a fortnightafter Dr. Haberden's visit that I came home from my stroll a littlerefreshed and lightened. The air was sweet and pleasant, and the hazyform of green leaves, floating cloud-like in the square, and the smellof blossoms, had charmed my senses, and I felt happier and walked morebriskly. As I delayed a moment at the verge of the pavement, waiting fora van to pass by before crossing over to the house, I happened to lookup at the windows, and instantly there was the rush and swirl of deepcold waters in my ears, and my heart leapt up, and fell down, down asinto a deep hollow, and I was amazed with a dread and terror withoutform or shape. I stretched out a hand blindly through folds of thickdarkness, from the black and shadowy valley, and held myself fromfalling, while the stones beneath my feet rocked and swayed and tilted,and the sense of solid things seemed to sink away from under me. I hadglanced up at the window of my brother's study, and at that moment theblind was drawn aside, and something that had life stared out into theworld. Nay, I cannot say I saw a face or any human likeness; a livingthing, two eyes of burning flame glared at me, and they were in themidst of something as formless as my fear, the symbol and presence ofall evil and all hideous corruption. I stood shuddering and quaking aswith the grip of ague, sick with unspeakable agonies of fear andloathing, and for five minutes I could not summon force or motion to mylimbs. When I was within the door, I ran up the stairs to my brother'sroom, and knocked.
"Francis, Francis," I cried, "for heaven's sake answer me. What is thehorrible thing in your room? Cast it out, Francis, cast it from you!"
I heard a noise as of feet shuffling slowly and awkwardly, and achoking, gurgling sound, as if some one was struggling to findutterance, and then the noise of a voice, broken and stifled, and wordsthat I could scarcely understand.
"There is nothing here," the voice said, "Pray do not disturb me. I amnot very well to-day."
I turned away, horrified and yet helpless. I could do nothing, and Iwondered why Francis had lied to me, for I had seen the appearancebeyond the glass too plainly to be deceived, though it was but the sightof a moment. And I sat still, conscious that there had been somethingelse, something I had seen in the first flash of terror before thoseburning eyes had looked at me. Suddenly I remembered; as I lifted myface the blind was being drawn back, and I had had an instant's glanceof the thing that was moving it, and in my recollection I knew that ahideous image was engraved forever on my brain. It was not a hand: therewere no fingers that held the blind, but a black stump pushed it aside;the mouldering outline and the clumsy movement as of a beast's paw hadglowed into my senses before the darkling waves of terror hadoverwhelmed me as I went down quick into the pit. My mind was aghast atthe thought of this, and of the awful presence that dwelt with mybrother in his room; I went to his door and cried to him again, but noanswer came. That night one of the servants came up to me and told me ina whisper that for three days food had been regularly placed at the doorand left untouched; the maid had knocked, but had received no answer;she had heard the noise of shuffling feet that I had noticed. Day afterday went by, and still my brother's meals were brought to his door andleft untouched; and though I knocked and called again and again, I couldget no answer. The servants began to talk to me; it appeared they wereas alarmed as I. The cook said that when my brother first shut himselfup in his room, she used to hear him come out at night and go about thehouse; and once, she said, the hall door had opened and closed again,but for several nights she had heard no sound. The climax came at last.It was in the dusk of the evening, and I was sitting in the darkeningdreary room when a terrible shriek jarred and rang harshly out of thesilence, and I heard a frightened scurry of feet dashing down thestairs. I waited, and the servant maid staggered into the room and facedme, white and trembling.
"O Miss Helen," she whispered. "Oh, for the Lord's sake, Miss Helen,what has happened? Look at my hand, miss; look at that hand!" I drew herto the window, and saw there was a black wet stain upon her hand.
"I do not understand you," I said. "Will you explain to me?"
"I was doing your room just now," she began. "I was turning down thebedclothes, and all of a sudden there was something fell upon my handwet, and I looked up, and the ceiling was black and dripping on me."
I looked bard at her, and bit my lip. "Come with me," I said. "Bringyour candle with you."
The room I slept in was beneath my brother's, and as I went in I felt Iwas trembling. I looked up at the ceiling, and saw a patch, all blackand wet and a dew of black drops upon it, and a pool of horrible liquorsoaking into the white bedclothes.
I ran upstairs and knocked loudly.
"O Francis, Francis, my dear brother," I cried, "what has happened toyou?"
And I listened. There was a sound of choking, and a noise like waterbubbling and regurgitating, but nothing else, and I called louder, butno answer came.
In spite of what Dr. Haberden had said, I went to him, and with tearsstreaming down my cheeks, I told him of all that had happened, and helistened to me with a face set hard and grim.
"For your father's sake," he said at last, "I will go with you, though Ican do nothing."
We went out together; the streets were dark and silent, and heavy withheat and a drought of many weeks. I saw the doctor's face white underthe gas-lamps, and when we reached the house his hand was shaking. Wedid not hesitate, but went upstairs directly. I held the lamp, and hecalled out in a loud, determined voice:--
"Mr. Leicester, do you hear me? I insist on seeing you. Answer me atonce."
There was no answer, but we both heard that choking noise I havementioned.
"Mr. Leicester, I am waiting for you. Open the door this instant, or Ishall break it down." And he called a third time in a voice that rangand echoed from the walls.
"Mr. Leicester! For the last time I order you to open the door."
"Ah!" he said, after a pause of heavy silence, "we are wasting timehere. Will you be so kind as to get me a poker, or something of thekind?"
I ran into a little room at the back where odd articles were kept, andfound a heavy adze-like tool that I thought might serve the doctor'spurpose.
"Very good," he said, "that will do, I dare say. I give you notice, Mr.Leicester," he cried loudly at the keyhole, "that I am now about to breakinto your room."
Then I heard the wrench of the adze, and the woodwork split and crackedunder it, and with a loud crash the door suddenly burst open; and for amoment we started back aghast at a fearful screaming cry, no humanvoice, but as the roar of a monster, that burst forth inarticulate andstruck at us out of the darkness.
"Hold the lamp," said the doctor, and we went in and glanced quicklyround the room
. "There it is," said Dr. Haberden, drawing a quickbreath; "look, in that corner."
I looked, and a pang of horror seized my heart as with a white-hot iron.There upon the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething withcorruption and hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, butmelting and changing before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous oilybubbles like boiling pitch. And out of the midst of it shone two burningpoints like eyes, and I saw a writhing and stirring as of limbs, andsomething moved and lifted up that might have been an arm. The doctortook a step forward, and raised the iron bar and struck at the burningpoints, and drove in the weapon, and struck again and again in a fury ofloathing. At last the thing was quiet.
* * * * *
A week or two later, when I had to some extent recovered from theterrible shock, Dr. Haberden came to see me.
"I have sold my practice," he began, "and to-morrow I am sailing on along voyage. I do not know whether I shall ever return to England; inall probability I shall buy a little land in California, and settlethere for the remainder of my life. I have brought you this packet,which you may open and read when you feel able to do so. It contains thereport of Dr. Chambers on what I submitted to him. Good-bye, MissLeicester, good-bye."
When he was gone, I opened the envelope; I could not wait, and proceededto read the papers within. Here is the manuscript; and if you will allowme, I will read you the astounding story it contains.
"My dear Haberden," the letter began, "I have delayed inexcusably inanswering your questions as to the white substance you sent me. To tellyou the truth, I have hesitated for some time as to what course I shouldadopt, for there is a bigotry and an orthodox standard in physicalscience as in theology, and I knew that if I told you the truth Ishould offend rooted prejudices which I once held dear myself. However,I have determined to be plain with you, and first I must enter into ashort personal explanation.
"You have known me, Haberden, for many years as a scientific man; youand I have often talked of our profession together, and discussed thehopeless gulf that opens before the feet of those who think to attain totruth by any means whatsoever, except the beaten way of experiment andobservation, in the sphere of material things. I remember the scorn withwhich you have spoken to me of men of science who have dabbled a littlein the unseen, and have timidly hinted that perhaps the senses are not,after all, the eternal, impenetrable bounds of all knowledge, theeverlasting walls beyond which no human being has ever passed. We havelaughed together heartily, and I think justly, at the "occult" folliesof the day, disguised under various names,--the mesmerisms,spiritualisms, materializations, theosophies, all the rabble rant ofimposture, with their machinery of poor tricks and feeble conjuring, thetrue back-parlor magic of shabby London streets. Yet, in spite of what Ihave said, I must confess to you that I am no materialist, taking theword of course in its usual signification. It is now many years since Ihave convinced myself, convinced myself a sceptic remember, that the oldiron-bound theory is utterly and entirely false. Perhaps this confessionwill not wound you so sharply as it would have done twenty years ago;for I think you cannot have failed to notice that for some timehypotheses have been advanced by men of pure science which are nothingless than transcendental, and I suspect that most modern chemists andbiologists of repute would not hesitate to subscribe the _dictum_ of theold Schoolman, _Omnia exeunt in mysterium_, which means, I take it, thatevery branch of human knowledge if traced up to its source and finalprinciples vanishes into mystery. I need not trouble you now with adetailed account of the painful steps which led me to my conclusions; afew simple experiments suggested a doubt as to my then standpoint, and atrain of thought that rose from circumstances comparatively triflingbrought me far. My old conception of the universe has been swept away,and I stand in a world that seems as strange and awful to me as theendless waves of the ocean seen for the first time, shining, from a Peakin Darien. Now I know that the walls of sense that seemed soimpenetrable, that seemed to loom up above the heavens and to be foundedbelow the depths, and to shut us in forevermore, are no such everlastingimpassable barriers as we fancied, but thinnest and most airy veils thatmelt away before the seeker, and dissolve as the early mist of themorning about the brooks. I know that you never adopted the extremematerialistic position: you did not go about trying to prove a universalnegative, for your logical sense withheld you from that crowningabsurdity; yet I am sure that you will find all that I am saying strangeand repellent to your habits of thought. Yet, Haberden, what I tell youis the truth, nay, to adopt our common language, the sole and scientifictruth, verified by experience; and the universe is verily more splendidand more awful than we used to dream. The whole universe, my friend, isa tremendous sacrament; a mystic, ineffable force and energy, veiled byan outward form of matter; and man, and the sun and the other stars, andthe flower of the grass, and the crystal in the test-tube, are each andevery one as spiritual, as material, and subject to an inner working.
"You will perhaps wonder, Haberden, whence all this tends; but I think alittle thought will make it clear. You will understand that from such astandpoint the whole view of things is changed, and what we thoughtincredible and absurd may be possible enough. In short, we must look atlegend and belief with other eyes, and be prepared to accept tales thathad become mere fables. Indeed, this is no such great demand. After all,modern science will concede as much, in a hypocritical manner. You mustnot, it is true, believe in witchcraft, but you may credit hypnotism;ghosts are out of date, but there is a good deal to be said for thetheory of telepathy. Give a superstition a Greek name, and believe init, should almost be a proverb.
"So much for my personal explanation. You sent me, Haberden, a phial,stoppered and sealed, containing a small quantity of a flaky whitepowder, obtained from a chemist who has been dispensing it to one ofyour patients. I am not surprised to hear that this powder refused toyield any results to your analysis. It is a substance which was known toa few many hundred years ago, but which I never expected to havesubmitted to me from the shop of a modern apothecary. There seems noreason to doubt the truth of the man's tale; he no doubt got, as hesays, the rather uncommon salt you prescribed from the wholesalechemist's; and it has probably remained on his shelf for twenty years,or perhaps longer. Here what we call chance and coincidence begins towork; during all these years the salt in the bottle was exposed tocertain recurring variations of temperature, variations probably rangingfrom 40 deg. to 80 deg. And, as it happens, such changes, recurring year afteryear at irregular intervals, and with varying degrees of intensity andduration, have constituted a process, and a process so complicated andso delicate, that I question whether modern scientific apparatusdirected with the utmost precision could produce the same result. Thewhite powder you sent me is something very different from the drug youprescribed; it is the powder from which the wine of the Sabbath, the_Vinum Sabbati_ was prepared. No doubt you have read of the Witches'Sabbath, and have laughed at the tales which terrified our ancestors;the black cats, and the broomsticks, and dooms pronounced against someold woman's cow. Since I have known the truth I have often reflectedthat it is on the whole a happy thing that such burlesque as this isbelieved, for it serves to conceal much that it is better should not beknown generally. However, if you care to read the appendix to PayneKnight's monograph, you will find that the true Sabbath was somethingvery different, though the writer has very nicely refrained fromprinting all he knew. The secrets of the true Sabbath were the secretsof remote times surviving into the Middle Ages, secrets of an evilscience which existed long before Aryan man entered Europe. Men andwomen, seduced from their homes on specious pretences, were met bybeings well qualified to assume, as they did assume, the part of devils,and taken by their guides to some, desolate and lonely place, known tothe initiate by long tradition and unknown to all else. Perhaps it was acave in some bare and wind-swept hill; perhaps some inmost recess of agreat forest, and there the Sabbath was held. There, in the blackesthour of night, the _Vinum Sabbati_ was prepared,
and this evil graal waspoured forth and offered to the neophytes, and they partook of aninfernal sacrament; _sumentes calicem principis inferorum,_ as an oldauthor well expresses it. And suddenly, each one that had drunk foundhimself attended by a companion, a shape of glamour and unearthlyallurement, beckoning him apart to share in joys more exquisite, morepiercing than the thrill of any dream, to the consummation of themarriage of the Sabbath. It is hard to write of such things as these,and chiefly because that shape that allured with loveliness was nohallucination, but, awful as it is to express, the man himself. By thepower of that Sabbath wine, a few grains of white powder thrown into aglass of water, the house of life was riven asunder, and the humantrinity dissolved, and the worm which never dies, that which liessleeping within us all, was made tangible and an external thing, andclothed with a garment of flesh. And then in the hour of midnight, theprimal fall was repeated and represented, and the awful thing veiled inthe mythos of the Tree in the Garden was done anew. Such was the_nuptiae Sabbati_.
"I prefer to say no more; you, Haberden, know as well as I do that themost trivial laws of life are not to be broken with impunity; and for soterrible an act as this, in which the very inmost place of the templewas broken open and defiled, a terrible vengeance followed. What beganwith corruption ended also with corruption."
* * * * *
Underneath is the following in Dr. Haberden's writing:--
"The whole of the above is unfortunately strictly and entirely true.Your brother confessed all to me on that morning when I saw him in hisroom. My attention was first attracted to the bandaged hand, and Iforced him to show it me. What I saw made me, a medical man of manyyears standing, grow sick with loathing; and the story I was forced tolisten to was infinitely more frightful than I could have believedpossible. It has tempted me to doubt the Eternal Goodness which canpermit nature to offer such hideous possibilities; and if you had notwith your own eyes seen the end, I should have said to you--disbelieveit all. I have not, I think, many more weeks to live, but you are young,and may forget all this.
"JOSEPH HABERDEN, M.D."
In the course of two or three months I heard that Dr. Haberden had diedat sea, shortly after the ship left England.
Miss Leicester ceased speaking, and looked pathetically at Dyson, whocould not refrain from exhibiting some symptoms of uneasiness.
He stuttered out some broken phrases expressive of his deep interest inher extraordinary history, and then said with a better grace--
"But, pardon me, Miss Leicester, I understood you were in somedifficulty. You were kind enough to ask me to assist you in some way."
"Ah," she said, "I had forgotten that. My own present trouble seems ofsuch little consequence in comparison with what I have told you. But asyou are so good to me, I will go on. You will scarcely believe it, but Ifound that certain persons suspected, or rather pretended to suspectthat I had murdered my brother. These persons were relatives of mine,and their motives were extremely sordid ones; but I actually foundmyself subject to the shameful indignity of being watched. Yes, sir, mysteps were dogged when I went abroad, and at home I found myself exposedto constant if artful observation. With my high spirit this was morethan I could brook, and I resolved to set my wits to work and elude thepersons who were shadowing me. I was so fortunate as to succeed. Iassumed this disguise, and for some time have lain snug and unsuspected.But of late I have reason to believe that the pursuer is on my track;unless I am greatly deceived, I saw yesterday the detective who ischarged with the odious duty of observing my movements. You, sir, arewatchful and keen-sighted; tell me, did you see any one lurking aboutthis evening?"
"I hardly think so," said Dyson, "but perhaps you would give me somedescription of the detective in question."
"Certainly; he is a youngish man, dark, with dark whiskers. He hasadopted spectacles of large size in the hope of disguising himselfeffectually, but he cannot disguise his uneasy manner, and the quick,nervous glances he casts to right and left."
This piece of description was the last straw for the unhappy Dyson, whowas foaming with impatience to get out of the house, and would gladlyhave sworn eighteenth century oaths if propriety had not frowned on sucha course.
"Excuse me, Miss Leicester," he said with cold politeness, "I cannotassist you."
"Ah!" she said sadly, "I have offended you in some way. Tell me what Ihave done, and I will ask you to forgive me."
"You are mistaken," said Dyson, grabbing his hat, but speaking with somedifficulty; "you have done nothing. But, as I say, I cannot help you.Perhaps," he added, with some tinge of sarcasm, "my friend Russell mightbe of service."
"Thank you," she replied; "I will try him," and the lady went off into ashriek of laughter, which filled up Mr. Dyson's cup of scandal andconfusion.
He left the house shortly afterwards, and had the peculiar delight of afive-mile walk, through streets which slowly changed from black to gray,and from gray to shining passages of glory for the sun to brighten. Hereand there he met or overtook strayed revellers, but he reflected that noone could have spent the night in a more futile fashion than himself;and when he reached his home he had made resolves for reformation. Hedecided that he would abjure all Milesian and Arabian methods ofentertainment, and subscribe to Mudie's for a regular supply of mild andinnocuous romance.