by Sax Rohmer
“Master of Destiny, inscrutable God, grant me light that I may see to perform the duty laid upon me. Use me, mould me, make of me an instrument. Millions have offered all and lost all. Guide my steps. If death lies upon the path I will not shrink, but suffer me to be of some little use to thy scarred and bleeding world. Amen.”
The ominous gunfire had ceased when he retired to his room that night after a lonely dinner, and even the more distant booming to which he was growing accustomed was not audible. The lantern of the moon hung above such a serene countryside that thoughts of war were all but impossible, and Paul likened the heavens to the jewelled dome of some vast mosque wherein were gathered together all the clashing creeds of mankind, their differences forgotten in a universal love.
XIV
The summer days slipped by, each morning bringing a letter from Yvonne, each night a longing that it might be the last of their separation. But the affairs of the late Sir Jacques’ estate were not easily dismissed, and Paul, eager with the ardent eagerness of a poet to set to work upon his task, yet found himself chained to Lower Charleswood. The place itself enchanted his imagination, and had his mind been free (and if Sir Jacques had never occupied Hatton Towers and impressed his individuality upon the house) Paul might have been content to stay — with Yvonne for a companion. But London called him urgently and inaction grew irksome.
Flamby Duveen he never tired of studying; she fascinated him like some rare palimpsest or Pythagorean problem. But Flamby was going to London as soon as arrangements could be made for her mother and herself to leave Dovelands Cottage. Mrs. Duveen had raised no objection to the proposed change; Mrs. Duveen had never raised an objection to anything throughout the whole of her docile career; and already Paul was weaving this oddly assorted pair into the scheme of that book which he projected as a challenge to the latent good in man.
Some of his neighbours he met, willy nilly, but they took no place in his mental record of things, save perhaps the place of punctuation marks, commas and semicolons for the most part, rarely rising to the definite degree of a full point and never approaching the dramatic significance of an exclamation mark. Already he floated above the common world, looking down upon its tortured contours and half-defaced frontiers — for the true poet is a fakîr who quits his physical body at the beck of inspiration, to return laden with strange secrets.
Jules Thessaly’s letter explaining his extraordinary breach of good behaviour had been characteristic of the man. For whilst it was couched in more or less conventional terms of apology, the writer obviously regarded his action as justified and assumed in Paul an understanding which rendered pique impossible. Paul’s theory regarding Thessaly’s sudden departure had been correct.
“The gods are all dead,” ran one passage in the letter. “A shell, one of our own, fortunately imperfect, entered the upper storey of my house and rudely forced a passage through one floor and the outer wall. Some slight damage has been done to my collection” — etc.
* * * * * *
The tangled details of Paul’s legacy became disentangled at last, and he fixed a definite date for his departure. That same evening the weather broke and grey clouds veiled the stars. He was keenly susceptible to climatic changes, and this abrupt interruption of summer plunged him into a dark mood. Gone were the fairies from the meadows, gone the dryads from the woods. The birds grew mute and roses drooped their heads. He found himself alone facing a sorrowful world and sharing its sorrows. The shadow of the black hat in the dining-room portrait lay darkly on Hatton Towers.
When such a mood was upon him he would resign himself to it with all that spiritual and intellectual abandon of which he was capable, savagely goading himself to blacker despair and contemplating his own condition with the critical faculty of his mind, which at these times remained undisturbed. Whilst the rain beat upon the windows and draperies billowed eerily in the draught, he passed from the library into the study and unlocked that high black oak bureau which concealed the private collection of works artistic and literary which had informed him of the true character of his late uncle. He had caused a huge fire to be made up in the old open hearth in the dining-room and he proposed to spend the evening in building a pyre which should consume the memory of the secret Sir Jacques.
The books, many of them in handsome bindings, he glanced at, in order that no one worthy of life should be destroyed. The verdict pronounced he either laid the book aside or broke it up and threw it on to the great fire in the adjoining room. He worked for an hour, eagerly, savagely, his coat stripped off and his shirt sleeves rolled above the elbow. The collection, though valuable, was small, and within the hour the bulk of it was ashes. Paul the iconoclast then turned his attention to the portfolios of water-colours, etchings and photographs which occupied the lower and deeper shelves of the bureau.
Here he found exquisite reproductions of Pompeiian frescoes, illustrations in line and colour to divers works, as Pierre Louys’ Aphrodite, the Satyricon of Petronius, and Ovid’s Amours. The crowning horror of the thing was the artistic skill which had been prostituted to such ends. Technically, many of the pictures were above criticism; morally all were beyond. He consigned the entire heap of them to the flames.
Only the photographs remained, and a glance at the first of these resulted in a journey to the dining-room with laden arms. By impish chance two large and tastefully mounted panels both representing a sun-kissed nymph posed beside a pool slipped from the bundle and fell at his feet. Kicking the ash-stifled fire into a blaze, he stooped to recover them. So stooping he remained, staring down at the pictures on the floor. Then slowly, dazedly, he took them up, one in either hand. They were photographs of Flamby.
* * * * * *
The fire roared up the brick chimney, the wind fought for entrance from above, rain beat dismally upon the high windows. The fire died down again, seeming to retire into the mound of grey ashes which it had created; and the photographs fell from Paul’s grasp.
A wrought-iron poker hung from a rack in the hearth, and, his face set like a mask, Paul took the crude weapon in his hand, and slowly raised his head until he was looking up at the oil-painting above the mantelpiece. The sound of a dry and discreet cough close behind him drew his attention to the presence of Davison. He turned, a strange figure, something very menacing in his eyes. Davison glanced furtively under the gate-legged table.
“Mr. Thessaly has called, sir,” he said, and held out a salver upon which lay a visiting-card.
“Where is he?”
“He is in the library, sir.”
“Very good. I will join him there in a few moments.”
The portrait of Sir Jacques had been spared to posterity by that admirable tradition which denies an English gentleman any display of emotion in the presence of a servant.
XV
“I have seized the first opportunity,” said Thessaly, as Paul, composure restored, entered the library, “of offering a personal explanation of my behaviour.”
Paul took his extended hand, waiving the proferred explanation. “Except as regards the damage done to your property, I am not interested. Had your disappearance been dictated by nothing more than a sudden desire for solitude I should have understood. If I should ever be called upon to act as you did on that occasion I should know that a friend would understand. If he misunderstood he would not be a friend. I fear I am somewhat dusty. I have been destroying a portion of my legacy.”
Jules Thessaly, dropping back into the padded arm-chair in which he had been seated, stared hard at Paul.
“Not the illustrations to that portion of Scheherazade’s narrative invariably expunged from all respectable editions of the Thousand and One Nights?”
Paul nodded, pushing a box of cigars across the table. “You know them?”
“I know that Sir Jacques possessed such pictures.”
“I have destroyed them.”
“Why?”
Paul selected a cigar ere looking up to meet the faintly amused glanc
e of Thessaly. “They bore witness to a phase of his life which he chose to conceal from the world. I could do no less.”
“You speak with contempt.”
“The hypocrite is contemptible. A frank libertine may be an amusing fellow. If we do not think so, we can avoid him.”
“I agree with you up to a point. But in justice remember that every man has pages in his history which are never displayed to the world.”
“Very likely. But every man does not pose as a saint. Those who seek the company of a professed rake do so at their own peril. But the disguised satyr is a menace to the innocent.”
“I would suggest that some specific ‘innocent’ occurs to your mind?”
“The adder does not bite itself. Were there no stories?”
“A few. But Sir Jacques was a model of discretion; as an under-secretary he would have glittered in the political firmament. There was a pretty village girl who promised at one time to provide the district with agreeable table-talk, but unfortunately for Miss Kingsbury and company the affair apparently fell through.”
“He was, as you say, a model of discretion.”
“Ah. There are records? Well, you were justified in destroying them.”
“It is hard to understand.”
“To understand whom — Sir Jacques or the girl? You cannot mean the girl. A man who reaches the age of thirty without understanding women is like a bluebottle who devotes a summer morning to an endeavour to fly through a pane of glass.”
“You speak like an early Roman.”
“What more admirable model? Consider the Roman institutions; perfect sanitation and slavery. We abolish one and adopt the other, with the result that a healthy democracy has swallowed us up. The early Romans were sages.”
“You have no sympathy for Sir Jacques’ victims?”
“Except where the chivalrous warriors of Prussia are concerned, and with other rare exceptions, I never think of women as victims, Mr. Mario.”
“Not even in the case of an aged hypocrite who probably posed as the Platonic friend?”
“Platonic friendship is impossible up to sixty-five. The most ignorant girl knows it to be so, for every woman has hereditary memory.”
“Your creed is a harsh one. You take no count of snares and pitfalls.”
“Snares and pitfalls cannot be set upon the highroad.”
“And how should you define this highroad?”
“As the path selected by our unspoiled instincts. It is ignorance posing as education that first blunts those instincts, dogma disguised as religion and hypocrisy misnamed ‘good behaviour.’”
“You would allow instinct to go unfettered?”
“Provided it remains unspoiled. But first I would sweep the world of lies.”
“Then you think the world ready for the truth?”
“I know that the world waits for it.”
“Do you think the world will recognise it?”
“In part the world has already recognised it. We lived in an age which was eternally demanding ‘proofs’ — and which rejected them when they were offered. But the great catastrophe which has overwhelmed us has adjusted our perspective. Few of us to-day dare to doubt the immortality of the soul. We failed to recognise joy as a proof of our survival after death, but we cannot reject the teaching of sorrow.”
“Love and friendship, of course, are proofs not only of immortality, but of pre-existence and the survival of the individual.”
“And can you make the disciples of the clap-trap which passes for religion believe this, Mr. Mario?”
“I propose to try. But the task is hard. There are pieces difficult to fit into the scheme.”
“You agree with me that the war, which was born of ignorance, will bear the fruit of truth?”
“I agree that it will bear the fruit of truth, but I do not agree that it was born of ignorance. Men did not cause the war. It is a visitation from higher powers, and therefore has a grand purpose. There are no accidents in the scheme of the universe.”
“You think those higher powers are powers of good?”
“Wherever the powers of darkness walk the Powers of Light stand arrayed before them.”
There was a muffled crash in the adjoining room, which brought Paul, startled, to his feet. He crossed the library and entered the panelled dining-room. The portrait of Sir Jacques had fallen from its place above the mantelpiece, breaking a number of ornaments as it fell. Davison was already on the spot and stood surveying the wreckage.
“The ‘eat of the extraordinary fire, no doubt, sir,” he said. “The ‘ook is loosened, as you observe.”
Paul stared at the man with unseeing eyes; he was striving to grasp the symbolic significance of the incident, but it eluded him, and presently he returned to the library, where Jules Thessaly was glancing at a book which he had taken from a shelf apparently at random.
“An accident?”
“Yes. A picture has fallen. Nothing serious.”
“Ah. Do you know this war-writer?” Thessaly held up the book in his hand— “Rudolf Kjellèn.”
“By name,” replied Paul, absently. “Does he understand?”
“Up to a point. His thesis is that a great and inevitable world-drama is being played and that he who seeks its cause in mere human plotting and diplomacy is a fool. States are superhuman but living biological personalities, dynamic, and moving toward inevitable ends beyond human control.”
“He is mad. All the German propagandists are mad. The insanity of Germany is part of the scheme of the world-change through which we are passing. He recognises the superhuman forces at work and in the same breath babbles of ‘states.’ There is only one earthly State and to that State all humanity belongs.”
Jules Thessaly returned Kjellèn’s work to its place. “If I do not misunderstand you,” he said, fixing his gaze upon Paul, “you contemplate telling the world that the churches have misinterpreted Revelation and that Christ as well as the other Masters actually revealed reincarnation as the secret of heaven and hell?”
“That is my intention.”
“Your audience is a vast one, Mr. Mario. No man for many generations has been granted the power to sway thought, which nature has bestowed upon you. Your word may well prevail against all things — even in time against Rome. You recognise that you are about to take up a mighty weapon?”
“I do. Publicity is the lever of which Archimedes dreamed; and I confess that I tremble. You think the churches will oppose me?”
“Can you doubt it?”
“I fear you are right, yet they should be my allies, not my enemies. In the spectacle of a world in arms the churches must surely recognise the evidence of failure. If they would survive they must open their doors to reform.”
“And what is the nature of the reform you would suggest?”
“Conversion from nineteen centuries of error to the simple creed of their Founder.”
“Impossible. Churches, like Russian securities, may be destroyed but never converted.”
“Yet in their secret hearts millions of professed churchmen believe as I believe — —”
“ —— That heaven and hell are within every man’s own soul and that the state in which he is born is the state for which he has fitted himself by the acts of his pre-existence?”
Paul inclined his head. “No other belief is possible to-day.”
“There are higher planets than Earth, perhaps lower. The ultimate deep is Hell, the ultimate height Heaven. The universe is a ladder which every soul must climb.”
From a catechism Jules Thessaly’s words had developed into a profession of faith, and Paul, who stood watching the speaker, grew suddenly aware — a phenomenon which all have experienced — that such a profession had been made to him before, that he had stood thus on some other occasion and had heard the same words spoken. He knew what Jules Thessaly was about to say.
“The knowledge which is yours is innate knowledge beyond human power to acquire in one short span of l
ife; it is the result of many lives devoted to study. For the task you are about to take up you have been preparing since the world was young. All is ordained, even your presence in this room to-night — and mine. Where last did we meet — where first? Perhaps in Rome, perhaps Atlantis; but assuredly we met and we meet again to fulfil a compact made in the dawn of time. I, too, am a student of the recondite, and it may be that some of the fragments of truth which I have collected will help you to force recognition of the light from a world plunged in darkness.”
“In utter darkness,” murmured Paul. And clearly before him — so clearly as almost to constitute hallucination — arose a vision of Flamby Duveen as she appeared in the secret photographs.
“You have definitely set your hand to the plough?”
“Definitely.”
Jules Thessaly advanced, leaning forward across the table. He stared fixedly at Paul. “To-night,” he said, “a new Star is born in the West and an hour will come when the eyes of all men must be raised to it.”
PART SECOND. FLAMBY IN LONDON
I
On a raw winter’s morning some six months later Don Courtier walked briskly out of St. Pancras station, valise in hand, and surveyed a misty yellow London with friendly eyes. A taxi-driver, hitherto plunged in unfathomable gloom, met this genial glance and recovered courage. He volunteered almost cheerfully to drive Don to any spot which he might desire to visit, an offer which Don accepted in an equally cordial spirit.
Depositing his valise at the Services Club in Stratford Place, his modest abode when on leave in London, Don directed the cabman to drive him to Paul Mario’s house in Chelsea.
“Go a long way round,” he said; “through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and up the Mall. I want to see the sights of London Town.”