Rival Caesars

by Desmond Dilg

  At this she wound her arms as if holding some loved one to her breast. Burr understood French perfectly, and as he heard her passionate prayer a curious wondering feeling of love and mesmeric fascination took possession of him. Yet he felt somehow half doubtful of himself, half terrified. In his heart was a fear; in his brain was a fire. “What does it mean?” he thought.

  Meanwhile the storm had rolled up again. For ten minutes the rain plunged down in swishing torrents. Whereupon he determined to seek temporary refuge in the little log hut.

  He felt like a man enchanted, as if some unknown power had possession of his will and impelled him, as it were, to do exactly what it wished. An inner voice kept urging in his ear: “Go inside, Aaron Burr. She is calling unto thee. Be not afraid.”

  Thereupon he walked around to the door and knocked, but no reply came. He knocked again louder; still no reply. Then he looked through a crevice in the door. The beautiful woman still slept, the pot still boiled, the fire still burned.

  “Go inside, Aaron Burr,” said the voice. Hesitating no longer he pushed open the unfastened door and entered. As the door swung ajar, the light from the fire shone upon an unrusted horseshoe nailed on the door. It seemed somehow familiar to Burr and he therefore examined it closer.

  “Wonder of wonders,” he thought to himself, “it is my own horse's shoe, lost an hour ago. I know it by its brightness, its peculiar shape, and the piece of bleeding hoof attached.”

  Now Aaron Burr was neither a spiritual, moral, nor physical coward, yet at this discovery a thrill of involuntary dread passed through him.

  “There is something uncanny here,” he thought. The dreaming woman lay by the fire, moaning as if in pain and repeating what appeared to be a liturgic incantation, in some unknown tongue.

  Burr spoke to her in English, in French, in Latin, and in several other languages he knew. She did not reply and yet seemed half awake. Then he stretched forth his hand and touched her naked flesh on the shoulder. She did not move; he shook her, yet she continued impassive. Every time his hand came in contact with her skin, however, a peculiar sensation swept over him like a galvanic shock. Wonder at “the Unknown” grew slowly upon him and his hair began to stand on end.

  “This is creepy,” thought he. Perhaps she is dying or in a trance or has fainted. But why is such a woman here? Her beauty is extraordinary. Her flesh is warm and soft, and she looks so lovely, so magically bewitching. What shall I do?”

  He stepped back towards the door intending to go away. Then, irresolute, he turned to her side and stooping picked up her hand and felt its pulse. The pulse was normal. However, as he let go her hand it seemed to cling to him and fill his excited brain with strange overmastering thoughts.

  “She is in perfect health,” he said to himself, “and yet I am sure there is something wrong with her. What is it and what shall I do—that is the point? How beautiful she looks in her thin gauzy robe. Her form and features are positively divine. She reminds me of some Oriental princess. How soft and warm and pleasing she is to me. I believe I could love her.”

  But even as he gazed a curious change came over her appearance. The long glossy gold-colored hair became grey. The shimmering gauzy robe became coarse linsey-woolsey. The delicately molded features and rounded limbs were transformed, and the swelling bosom shrank. What appeared to be a young and charming maid was changed, as it were, in a moment of time, into a parchment faced, weazened, little old woman, half-blind, halt and lame.

  “It must be witchcraft,” thought Burr, as he saw these astonishing changes take place right before his eyes. “It is, it must be some occult sorcery. It surpasses all I have ever read or heard of before. Perhaps there is something in magic after all: Is not “Magic” the ancient name for “Science”? There may be half-hidden forces and elements in Nature which certain persons (by accident or otherwise) have re-discovered and applied. The wisest of us are but as infants in knowledge. In my own being I know there are unaccountable powers and instincts. Verily the Magic Sciences of Ancient Times may have had greater modifying and creative power over both life and death than we can now conceive of as probable or possible.”

  With such unspoken thoughts as these flashing and dancing incoherently through his bewildered brain, he again turned to leave the seemingly bewitched hut, whereupon the wrinkled old woman awoke and looking straight at him she said familiarly as if she had known him all her life:

  “Aaron Burr, be not alarmed at what thou hast beheld. But let no man know. In days that are past thou dids’t live and strive. In days yet to come thou shalt live and strive again and again. For thou art one of the Immortal Ones, even as I am. I die not, and neither shalt thou die. I summoned thee to my side here and now because thou art the re-incarnation of him who loved me and made me happy in centuries long gone by.

  “For the tenth time my MANOA invocation for the restoration of youth and love has proved a failure—the spell of Mantra from the OM of Konar Thur-ar, still rests on me, and on thee also. Thus our lives are still separate. The combination of ingredients that I have searched for to the ends of the world have again eluded me. The beverage of regeneration that I brewed with such confidence and skill has again proved incomplete. Thou doubtest me, O Aaron Burr; but nevertheless the “herb' is, that once tasted, maketh man or woman “eternal’ in the flesh—and the peer of all human loveliness.

  “As thou did'st see, I failed, but someday I shall succeed. My wish, however, through all the ages, is for thee and only thee—but thy greatness is not yet. Remember, O Aaron Burr, thou shalt be born again to a mightier name and a mightier fame—within a century from the day of thy death.

  “Then thou shalt know pure delight, and then I shall know youth and beauty and be seated at thy side, while brassy legions go marching by in triumph— Conquerors of the World.

  “O, Aaron Burr, thou that are 'yet to be' (in the fullness of time) how blessed, how truly blessed a thing it is to be young and famous, beautiful, powerful and beloved?”

  Burr looked at her long lean features, her outstretched skeleton-like arm, with a feeling of mingled awe and wonder. Seeming to read his thoughts she continued:

  “Go, Aaron Burr, go. Go forth to meet a foreordained destiny. Go forth to live and love, to do and die, not once or twice or thrice, but again and again and again. Thou shalt drink deeply of the bitter and of the sweet. Thou shalt see blood, and rise to power. Thou shalt lead warriors amid the acclaim of men, and thou shalt win (even as of old-time) the mad, undying, cruel love of woman.

  “Thereafter shalt thou be dashed down and betrayed; and no man shall dare raise his voice on thy behalf. Nevertheless, all is well with thee—all is well. And some day we two shall meet again, and wed again even as in the golden days of silk and sendal, by the banks of the beautiful, the beautiful river that flows past the Seats of the Strong.

  “Verily I say unto thee, O my beloved one, the conquest of age and of death cometh unto man. Life is everlasting to some. When man emerges from the womb he is arising from the tomb.

  “Go, O Aaron Burr, go, I belong to the Half Realm of Val, but, thou art as yet in the land of men.”

  Then with a piteous wailing sigh she motioned him a second time to go, pointing towards the outer darkness with her long gaunt bony hand, upon which gleamed (in the fading firelight) a great flashing carbuncle with a curious device, like unto the “Coiled Serpent Banner” of the Iron Cross.

  VI

  The Prophecy of Fate

  O was it a wehr-wolf in the wood?

  Or was it a mermaid in the sea?

  Or was it man or vile woman?

  My own true love that mis-shaped thee.

  Passively as if controlled by some unseen power outside of himself, Aaron Burr turned to depart. Then again, he scrutinized closer the transfigured woman. As he did so, he observed a small wound upon her breast from which the blood oozed slowly.

  Suddenly a further thought struck him and he turned and said unto her in his most winning way: “Madame
, I perceive there is something more than human in this interview. I feel that you may perhaps know things hidden to mortals. I would therefore question you again.”

  “Two questions only will I answer. Then thou must depart. I listen.”

  “Madam, it is well. When first I beheld thee I was inflamed with love and desire, but now thou art so changed, so strangely transformed that I hardly know thee as the same person. Nevertheless, I would ask from thee (for surely thou art a seeress, a Beyond Woman perhaps)—what is my fate? What is the fate of my country and People, I am sure, O weird woman of the woods, that in some way unknown to me thou canst see into the immediate future.”

  Whereupon she stood up, looked into the boiling cauldron, stirred the fire with her lean arm, and gazed long and steadfastly into Burr's face in a searching way, saying:

  “Aaron Burr, learn to endure and bear with fortitude calamities no man may cure. For as thou art born so shalt thou be; and all is well with the world.

  “As for thy people, they shall become invincible for a period and half a period. For a time and half a time the world shall sink before them. Pigmy Europe and hoary Asia shall they measure with a single glance of the eye. Their armies shall be as thunderbolts, and their families as broods of young lions. Their fleets shall sweep the oceans, steer into the Pit beneath the seas, and soar on pinions of the wind over mountains of iron and of gold.

  “I see mighty engines of metal and of uranium. I see rushing machines of creation and destruction. I see the red victors and pale vanquished. I see haughty Babylons on the shores of embattled lakes, and on banks of lordly rivers. I see the smoke and storm of flaming iron, the rumbling roar of looms, the ceaseless clang of hammers, the hissing snarl and flash of harnessed lightning

  “I see grandeur and power, glory and wealth, then decay and the fiery re-borning. I see majestic temples and altars of the gods. I see magnificent days of wrath and blood and ashes. I see earth shaking monsters and warriors of flame, the sea boiling like a pot, the moon colored like blood, brother fighting against brother, father against son; and (confusion of confusion) wives wandering free.

  “There is blood upon thee, O Aaron Burr, but fear it not. Go the way of the warrior. The man of peace is not beloved of the gods. Nobility is in thy purpose but strong foes shall come up against thee—stronger than thy strength.

  “Three things do I adore in my Beloved. A proud heart, a silent tongue, and hands that fear not death.

  “Farewell my past and my future lover—thou delight of my soul. Go the way of the Proud One. Let no man make thee afraid, and no woman weaken thy soul.”

  As Burr turned to go (this time he went) a sort of hypnotic numbness came over his brain. A phantasmagoria of his own future career galloped like Brocken wraiths thru his brain in a series of stage-like scenes. His memory refused to retain them, but all through his after life he recognized them one by one as they came true, (which they all did).

  As he walked out of the hut into the cold damp air that night, he felt himself like a man awaking from a drug induced stupor.

  Meantime the thunderstorm had again abated and the angry moon shone out brightly over a dripping forest.

  Burr walked back down the mound to where he had fastened his horse to a tree, at the entrance of the clearing. He began to remove the saddle and bridle with the intention of letting the lame animal go.

  To his intense surprise the horse seemed unaccountably filled with new life and vigor. Upon arrival at the clearing the poor brute could scarcely walk but now his lameness had entirely disappeared. He cocked his ears like a three-year-old colt and actually pranced. Looking at the hoofs, Burr observed with further astonishment that the lost shoe had been replaced.

  He picked up the horse's foot and examined it by the light of the moon, and as far as he could see it was exactly as when he left General Arnold's camp a couple of hours ago.

  Aaron Burr wondered mightily and thought to himself: “Am I dreaming? Am I losing my senses? Am I bewitched or dazed? What is the matter with me? What is the meaning of these mysterious happenings? How attractive was the sight of that young woman on the couch of leaves! Surely I have seen her before, and yet I cannot recollect where. Then she knew my name? I can never forget her. There was a something positively uncanny about her. Perhaps human life may be artificially prolonged for centuries, nay for ages, and the old tradition of re-birth—re-incarnation—may have a solid basis in fact. I feel within myself wonderous throbbings of some double existence in the past—some half unknown life of long ago wherein I sojourned, as it were, in a sort of dreamland. It is not impossible that I may have really lived and loved and fought in ages long gone by.”

  With such thoughts chasing each other through his surcharged brain, he tightened the girths of his saddle, mounted and started to ride away. Then an impulse came to him to have one last look at the scene of his adventure. He turned round in the saddle and saw nothing. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The very landscape had been transfigured. He was now riding along a narrow bridle-track and all around were gaunt, wet, moss-grown trees, swaying from side to side by the overhead force of the wind. The log cabin with the blazing fire, the circular mound with the burning altar on top, and the steaming lake had all disappeared.

  Aaron Burr pinched his thigh to discover whether he was really alive or dead, or just dreaming. As he did so, a gaunt grey she-wolf, came slinking across the trail right ahead of him. Her eyes glittered with a supernatural light.

  The horse snorted and shied in great terror. Burr reached his right hand into his holster. He grasped a pistol and attempted to withdraw it but could not. He tugged at the pistol with all his strength but it would not move an inch out of the holster. Meanwhile the old she-wolf limped away through the woods and disappeared with a prolonged mournful howl that sounded almost human. Then the pistol came out with ease, but too late for use.

  Burr's horse was now in splendid heart. He cantered down the valley towards the river in grand style. He leaped flooded creeks and wind thrown trees as if he had wings. In less than an hour, horse and rider covered the remaining 7 miles and arrived at Hanging Rock ford.

  Here the boatmen had pitched their initial camp, One of them unsaddled the horse whereupon the beast fell down and died. By this time Major. Burr had grown so accustomed to wonders that the sudden death of his troop horse did not further surprise him. To satisfy his curiosity, however, he examined the dead animal's hoofs and found that the shoe (torn off during the first part of his journey, and then so mysteriously replaced at the clearing) had again disappeared. Indeed, seemingly, it had never really been replaced, for the horse's hoof was raw and torn and bleeding.

  Burr said nothing about this weird adventure to the boatmen. “They would think me mad,” he thought, “or laugh at me. They have no conception of anything outside the common rut.”

  Then being very weary from the days' march and the long night ride, he straightway went into a bell tent (which the boatmen had prepared for him) where he lay down upon a rough couch of dry leaves, covering himself with military rugs and soon fell sound asleep.

  By daylight next morning the boat was launched on the yellow river. Aaron Burr was rapidly steering south—steering home—between banks lined and overhung by a grand primeval forest in which the wild beasts roamed and roared, while preying upon one another with all the energy, strategy and valor, of human beings.

  Now although Aaron Burr was ever a man of sane and steady judgment, yet to the end of his days he related this curious experience with the eerie woman in the northern forest, without being able to offer any rational explanation thereof.

  When closely pressed he was wont to say to his intimates, “It is beyond reason or logic I admit, but reason and logic, may not include everything. It happened. That's all I know. The meaning thereof is utterly beyond me. I cannot explain the unexplainable nor can you. I doubt not, more things exist in this world than are imagined in any philosophy. We live in the midst of perpetual mystery and m
iracle (or what appears as such to us). Our very existence is a miracle. Yet it may all be explainable some day. Without question the greater part of a man comes down to him from the past. That I am sure. As to the 'why and wherefore' I know nothing. Neither doth any one else.”

  After innumerable adventures on the trip down the river, including a battle-royal with bushwhackers, being nearly drowned in the rapids, being chased by redskins, and nearly losing all his baggage, Aaron Burr, at last arrived in Albany. Here he received a letter from Mathias Ogden. It was written in one of the ciphers of the Iron Cross and ran as follows:

  My Dear Cousin:

  . . . The Iron Cross is a tremendous success. Everywhere young men of wealth and ambition are joining and forming private lodges. This is the kind of men we want. Our own lodge is getting along swimmingly. . . . . Clinton is Colonel of the 3d regiment. Van Ranneslaer has got the 6th regiment. Van Ness commands the 9th and Livingston, brother of Nellie and cousin of Helen, is colonel of the 4th. We are pushing each other to the front in every possible way.

  Swartwout is captain of the Minute Men and Rosenkrantz has got a command on the Jersey side. Morton, Morgan, and Roosevelt have obtained good positions in the Commissary Department. Your brother in law Tappan Reeve is made a judge and your friend Hamilton is captain of the “Hearts of Oak”—the Kings College artillery company.