Horrors Unknown

by Sam Moskowitz (ed)

  “To burn them, of course. I can’t have them littering my room.”

  “My dear sir,” said the Green Bird, “those feathers are immensely valuable. They will be needed to make Rosamond’s wings. Put them into one of the drawers of the bureau, until they are wanted.”

  I obeyed.

  XIV / ON THE ADVANTAGES OF MARRYING A WITCH.

  “Now,” continued the bird, “what are your plans for escape?”

  “I haven’t any, except a general idea of throttling Goloptious the next time he comes in here, gagging the Mouths, handcuffing the Hands, and bunging up all the Eyes, and then bolting somewhere or other with the Blond Head—that is, if we can recover her legs—say to Grace Church, where, with the blessing of Brown, we can become man and wife.”

  “Are you not afraid to marry a sorceress?”

  “Why should I be? Haven’t I been continually calling every woman with whom I have been in love an enchantress; and writing lots of verses about the ‘spells’ with which she encompassed me; and the magic of her glance, and the witchery of her smile? I’m not at all sorry, if the truth must be confessed, to meet an enchantress at last. She will afford me continual amusement. I need never go to see Professor Wyman, or Herr Dobler, or Robert Houdin. I can get up a little Parlor Magic whenever I choose. Fancy the pleasure of having Genii for servants, just like Aladdin! No Irish Biddies, to overroast your beef, and underboil your potatoes; to ‘fix’ her mop of capillary brushwood with your private, particular hairbrush; to drink your brandy and then malign the cat; to go out on Sunday evenings, ‘to see his Reverence Father McCarthy,’ touching some matter connected with the confessional, and come home towards midnight drunk as an owl; to introduce at two in the morning, through the convenient postern of the basement, huge ‘cousins,’ whose size prevents you from ejecting them with the speed they merit, and who impudently finish their toddies before they obey your orders to quit. Genii have no cousins, I believe. Happy were the people in the days of Haroun A1 Raschid.

  “On these grounds I esteem it a privilege to marry a witch. If you want dinner, all you have got to do is to notify your wife. She does something or other, kills a black hen, or draws a circle in chalk, and lo! an attendant Genius, who lived four years in his last place, appears, and immediately produces an exquisite repast, obtained by some inscrutable means, known only to the Genii, and you dine, without having the slightest care as to marketing, or butcher’s or baker’s bills.

  “Then again, if your wife knits you a purse, what more easy for her than to construct it after the pattern of Fortunatus’s? If she embroiders you a pair of slippers, they can just as well as not be made on the last of the seven-league boots. Your smoking-cap can possess the power of conferring invisibility like that of Fortunio.

  “You can have money when you want. You can dress better at church than any of her acquaintances, because all the treasures of Solomon are at her disposal, to say nothing of those belonging to Jamshid. You can travel faster than any locomotive. You can amuse yourself with inspecting the private lives of your friends. You can win at cards when you desire it. You can at any moment take up your drawing-room carpet, and make it sail away with you and all your earthly possessions to Minnesota, if you please. You can buy a block on Fifth Avenue, and build a palace in a night, and, in short, be always young, handsome, wealthy, happy, and respected. Marry an enchantress! why, it’s even more profitable than marrying a Spirit Medium!”

  “So you intend to marry Rosamond,” remarked the Green Bird, with the slightest sneer in the world.

  “Certainly. Why not?”

  “I don’t see how you’re to do it. She has not got any legs, and may not be able to get away from here. You won’t have any legs in a day or two. You are both in the power of Count Goloptious; and, even if you were to escape from your rooms, you would not be able to find the way out of the Hotel de Coup d’OEil.”

  “If I were forced to walk on my hands, I would bear Rosamond away from this cursed den of enchantment.”

  “An excellent speech for Ravel to make,” replied the Green Bird, “but I fancy that your education as an Acrobat has been neglected.”

  “I think I see at what you are aiming,” I answered. “You want to make terms. How much do you want to assist Rosamond and myself to escape? I learn from her song that you know the ropes.”

  “I know the stairs and the doors,” said the Green Bird, indignantly, “and that is more to the purpose.”

  “Well, if you show us the way to get free, I will give you a golden cage.”

  “Good.”

  “You shall have as much hemp-seed as you can eat.”

  “Excellent.”

  “And as much Barsac as you can drink.”

  “No,” here the Green Bird shook his head; “I won’t drink any more of your wine, but I want every morning a saffron cocktail.” “A what?”

  “A saffron cocktail. Saffron is our delight, not only of a shiny night, but also of a shiny morning, in all seasons of the year. It is the Congress Water of birds.”

  “Well, you shall have a saffron cocktail.”

  “And fresh groundsel every day.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Then I am yours. I will give my plot.”

  THE GREEN BIRD MAKES A PLOT WHICH DIFFERS

  FROM ALL OTHER CONTEMPORARY PLOTS IN

  BEING SHORT AND SWEET.

  “Sir,” said the Green Bird, “you wish to escape.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “The chief enemies which you have at present to fear are the Hands that clutch, and the Mouths that betray.”

  “I am aware of that fact.”

  “It is necessary that you should visit Rosamond’s room.”

  “I would give my life to accomplish such a call.”

  “All you want to enable you to accomplish it is a couple of lead-pencils and a paper of pins.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, that’s my plot. Order them at the Ear, and when you get them I will show you how to use them”; and the Green Bird ruffled out his feathers and gave himself airs of mystery.

  I immediately went to the Ear, and, removing the wax with which I had deafened it, ordered the articles as prescribed. I confess, however, that I was rather puzzled to know how with the aid of two lead-pencils and a paper of pins I was to baffle the spells of Goloptious.

  XV / PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.

  While awaiting the arrival of the desired articles, I heard Rosamond calling me through the window; I immediately obeyed the summons.

  “An idea has just struck me,” said the Blond Head. “I am exceedingly anxious, as you know, to get away from here, and I have no doubt with your aid might succeed in doing so, but how am I to take my trunks?”

  “Your what?”

  “Trunks. You did not suppose, surely, that I was staying here without a change of dress.”

  “I always thought that imprisoned heroines contrived in some miraculous manner to get along without fresh linen. I have known, in the early days of my novel-reading, a young lady run through six volumes, in the course of which she was lost in forests, immersed in lakes, and imprisoned in dungeons, in a single white skirt and nothing on her head. I often thought what a color that white skirt must have been at the end of the novel.”

  “O,” said Rosamond, “I have quite a wardrobe here.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave it behind.”

  “What! leave all those ducks of dresses behind! Why, I’d rather stay here forever than part with them. It’s so like a man to say, in the coolest manner in the world, ‘Leave them behind.’ ” And the Blond Head here agitated her curls with a certain tremulous motion, indicative of some indignation.

  “My dear, you need not be angry,” I said soothingly. “Perhaps, after all, we can manage to get your trunks away also. How much luggage have you got?”

  “I will read you the list I made of it,” answered Rosamond.

  This is her list—I jotted it down at the t
ime in pencil. The remarks are my own:—

  One large trunk, banded with iron, and containing my evening dresses.

  One large square trunk containing my bonnets, two dozen. (The excusable vanity of an individual having nothing but a head.)

  One cedar chest containing my furs. (At this point I ventured a joke about a cedar chest being a great deal too good for such minkses. I was promptly suppressed by the dignified statement that they were sables.)

  One circular box for carrying the incompressible skirt. (Doubtless an expansive package.)

  A bird-cage.

  A case for artificial flowers.

  A feather case. (Containing the last feather which is supposed to be fatal to the Camel.)

  A willow basket for bonnets. (More bonnets!)

  Three large trunks. (Contents not stated—suspicious circumstance.)

  Four small trunks. (What male who has ever travelled with a lady does not remember with terror her small parcels? The big ones gravitate naturally to the baggage-car; but you are requested to see after the little ones yourself. You carry them in your arms, tenderly, as if they were so many babies. What lamentations if they slip—and they are always doing it—and fall in the street! Something very precious must be inside. In the cars, you have to stow them away under the seat so that you have no room for your legs. Woe to you if one is lost or mislaid. It always contains the very thing of all others which the owner would not have lost for worlds.)

  A bandbox. (The bandbox is the most terrible apparatus connected with the locomotion of females. It refuses utterly to accommodate itself to travel. Its lid comes off. It will fit into no shaped vehicle. Of its own accord it seems to place itself in positions favorable to its being sat upon. When crushed or in any way injured, it is capable of greater shabbiness of appearance than any other article of luggage.)

  A dressing-case.

  A portable bath.

  An easel. (Easily carried.)

  Three boxes of books. (A porter who was once removing my luggage called my attention to the weight of the box in which I had packed my books. They were certainly very heavy, and yet I had selected them with the greatest care.)

  Here Rosamond stopped, and then proposed going over the list again, as she was sure she had forgotten something.

  I respectfully declined the repetition, but asked her by what possible means she expected to transport such a quantity of luggage out of the Hotel de Coup d’OEil.

  “You and the Green Bird can manage it, I suppose,” she answered; “and I wish you would make haste, for I am getting very weary of not being able to walk. I shall enjoy so having my legs back again.”

  “Have you any idea where Count Goloptious put them?”

  “O yes. They are in some cellar or other in a bin, with a number of other legs.”

  “Are the bins numbered?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Do you know the number of your bin?”

  “No. How should I?”

  ‘It strikes me as rather awkward that you do not. For supposing that the Green Bird and myself succeed in getting down stairs in search of your legs, if we don’t know the number of the bin we shall have some difficulty in finding the right ones, and it would be very disagreeable if you had to walk off with another person’s legs.”

  “I never thought of that,” said Rosamond, gravely. “A misfit would be horribly uncomfortable.”

  XVI / A THRILLING CHAPTER.

  We were certainly in a very unpleasant fix. To go down stairs on a wild-goose chase among the bins in search of the legs of the Blond Head would be anything but agreeable.

  “Can you not make any pair do for the present?” I asked.

  “Any pair? Certainly not. Could you get along with any other head but your own?”

  The question rather took me aback. I confessed that such a change was not at all to be desired.

  “Then go,” said the Blond Head, “and search for them.”

  “Faint heart,” etc.; a musty adage came into my head, and I answered, “I will do so.” Turning to the Green Bird, I asked, “Will you come to the cellars?”

  “Yes, at once,” was the answer.

  “Lead the way, then; you must be better acquainted here than I am.”

  The Green Bird led the way down the stairs, with all the hands before us; but not one moved now. Down! down! at least an hundred flights, then through a hall, and into a vast chamber black as midnight.

  “How are we to find the legs in this plutonian darkness?” I asked.

  “Silence!” said the Green Bird, and a falling feather aroused an echo that sounded like the beating of an hundred drums; “speak not if you would succeed!”

  In silence I followed on through the cavernous chamber with its pitchy walls—on, still on. At last a small blue light appeared burning in the distance like the eye of a tiger. As we approached, it gradually increased in size, until, at last, as we neared it, it became magnified into an opening some sixty feet wide. Beyond, burned a lake of deadly blue sulphur, shedding a pale unearthly light. As we passed through the opening, a figure suddenly appeared before us. It was that of an old man. He carried a stick in his right hand, and walked with a feeble gait, but, what struck me as rather peculiar, his head, instead of being on his shoulders, he carried under his left arm.

  “Who are you?” he asked, speaking from the head under his arm.

  “I am an author,” I replied.

  “Look there?” he said, as he pointed to the burning lake.

  I looked, and beheld what I had not before noticed. It was inhabited. Hundreds of poor wretches were there, burning and writhing in the seething flame.

  “Who are those wretched beings?” I queried, in terror.

  “Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the old man. “Those are authors!”

  “Why doomed to a residence here?”

  “Because, when on the earth beyond, they failed to fulfil their mission. They lost sight of their goal. They digressed from the path of honor. They—”

  “I see. They went it blind,”

  “Exactly.”

  “There,” and he pointed to a floating head near the edge of the lake—“there is a plagiarist. His is the A No. 1 degree. There,” and he pointed to another, “is one who published and edited a newspaper.”

  “His offense?” I asked.

  “Blackmailing. There is one who wrote flash novels.”

  “Jack Sheppard. The Bhoys,” I muttered.

  “Ay; you be wise; avoid the broad path; keep faith; be true. And now what seek you here?”

  I told him my errand.

  “And you hope to find the legs?”

  “I do.”

  “Come, then, with me. Here, carry my head.”

  I took the head, and, with the Green Bird by my side, followed the singular old man. He led us round by the lake, so close that, at times, the heat seemed to scorch my clothing. Presently he stopped opposite a great door of blue veined marble. Pushing that open, we entered a large and brilliantly lighted apartment. Here, upon every side, countless legs protruded from the wall. As we entered, the legs all at once commenced kicking as though they would eject us from their abode.

  The old man took his head from us, and, putting it under his arm, commanded the legs to desist from their threatening attitudes. In an instant they all fell dormant.

  “Here,” he said, “are the legs of all who have ever slept in the Hotel de Coup d’OEil, and here you will find those of the Blond Head.”

  “But how am I to know them?” I said.

  “That I cannot tell you.”

  “I can tell them,” said the Green Bird, now speaking for the first time since we left the darkness; and it flew around the room, stopping to look at now one pair of legs, now another. At last it stopped opposite a remarkably crooked pair of limbs. “Here they are,” he said.

  “Nonsense! it cannot be. Such a beauty as the Blond Head never propelled on such pedals as those.”

  “It is true,” answered the bir
d. “Take them down, and see.” I seized the legs, and with a sudden jerk pulled them from their place. What was my surprise on finding Count Goloptious before me. The legs were his.

  “Ha!” he exclaimed, “you would trick me, but I have watched you. The Blond Head is safe.”

  “Safe!” I echoed.

  “Ay, safe, safe in my stronghold, the Hotel de Coup d’OEil.”

  “’Tis false!” cried the Green Bird. “She is here!” As it spoke, it flew to a small door in the wall which I had not before noticed. Tapping with its beak against it, it opened instantly, and, looking in, I beheld the Blond Head complete. Never did I behold a being so beautiful as she seemed to me at that glance. Grace, beauty, voluptuousness—well, imagine all the extensive descriptions of female loveliness you have ever read in two-shilling novels, put them all altogether, and pile on as much more, and then you have her description.

  “Fair Rosamond,” I exclaimed, as I started forward to gain her—“Fair Rosamond, you shall be saved.”

  “Never!” cried Count Goloptious—“never! Beward, rash youth! You have dared to criticize Italian opera, you have dared write political leaders, you have dared theatrical managers, you have dared a fickle public—all this you have done, but brave not me. If you would be safe, if you value your life, go, depart in peace!”

  As he spoke, I felt the chivalric blood fast coursing through my veins. Go, and leave the fair being I loved in the power of a monster? No, I resolved upon the instant that I would die with her, or I would have her free.

  “Count,” I exclaimed in passionate tones, “I defy thee. I will never forsake yon wretched lady.”

  “Then your doom is sealed.” He stamped three times upon the floor, and instantly the Green Bird disappeared. The place was wrapped in darkness. I felt myself borne through the murky, foul air of the cavern through which we had first passed, with the rapidity of a cannon-ball, Emerging from it, I found myself in the arms of the Count; by his side stood the old man with his head under his arm.

  “Here,” cried the Count, “is the nine hundred and twentieth. Eighty more, and we are free.”

  A demoniacal laugh burst from the old man as he took me, unable to resist him, from Goloptious. “Go, go to your brother authors, to the blue lake of oblivion. Go,” he exclaimed with a sardonic bitterness, as he pitched me from him into the burning lake.