Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  But the Dark Star Erlik, terribly immortal, sped on through space to complete a two-hundred-thousand-year circuit of the heavens, and begin anew an immemorial journey by the will of the Most High.

  What spectroscope is to horoscope, destiny is to chance. The black star Erlik rushed through interstellar darkness unseen; those born under its violent augury squalled in their cradles, or, thumb in mouth, slumbered the dreamless slumber of the newly born.

  One of these, a tiny girl baby, fussed and fidgeted in her mother’s arms, tortured by prickly heat when the hot winds blew through Trebizond.

  Overhead vultures circled; a stein-adler, cleaving the blue, looked down where the surf made a thin white line along the coast, then set his lofty course for China.

  Thousands of miles to the westward, a little boy of eight gazed out across the ruffled waters of the mill pond at Neeland’s Mills, and wondered whether the ocean might not look that way.

  And, wondering, with the salt sea effervescence working in his inland-born body, he fitted a cork to his fishing line and flung the baited hook far out across the ripples. Then he seated himself on the parapet of the stone bridge and waited for monsters of the deep to come.

  * * * * *

  And again, off Seraglio Point, men were rowing in a boat; and a corded sack lay in the stern, horridly and limply heavy.

  There was also a box lying in the boat, oddly bound and clamped with metal which glistened like silver under the Eastern stars when the waves of the Bosporus dashed high, and the flying scud rained down on box and sack and the red-capped rowers.

  * * * * *

  In Petrograd a little girl of twelve was learning to eat other things than sour milk and cheese; learning to ride otherwise than like a demon on a Cossack saddle; learning deportment, too, and languages, and social graces and the fine arts. And, most thoroughly of all, the little girl was learning how deathless should be her hatred for the Turkish Empire and all its works; and how only less perfect than our Lord in Paradise was the Czar on his throne amid that earthly paradise known as “All the Russias.”

  Her little brother was learning these things, too, in the Corps of Officers. Also he was already proficient on the balalaika.

  * * * * *

  And again, in the mountains of a conquered province, the little daughter of a gamekeeper to nobility was preparing to emigrate with her father to a new home in the Western world, where she would learn to perform miracles with rifle and revolver, and where the beauty of the hermit thrush’s song would startle her into comparing it to the beauty of her own untried voice. But to her father, and to her, the most beautiful thing in all the world was love of Fatherland.

  * * * * *

  Over these, and millions of others, brooded the spell of the Dark Star. Even the world itself lay under it, vaguely uneasy, sometimes startled to momentary seismic panic. Then, ere mundane self-control restored terrestrial equilibrium, a few mountains exploded, an island or two lay shattered by earthquake, boiling mud and pumice blotted out one city; earth-shock and fire another; a tidal wave a third.

  But the world settled down and balanced itself once more on the edge of the perpetual abyss into which it must fall some day; the invisible shadow of the Dark Star swept it at intervals when some far and nameless sun blazed out unseen; days dawned; the sun of the solar system rose furtively each day and hung around the heavens until that dusky huntress, Night, chased him once more beyond the earth’s horizon.

  The shadow of the Dark Star was always there, though none saw it in sunshine or in moonlight, or in the silvery lustre of the planets.

  A boy, born under it, stood outside the fringe of willow and alder, through which moved two English setters followed and controlled by the boy’s father.

  “Mark!” called the father.

  Out of the willows like a feathered bomb burst a big grouse, and the green foliage that barred its flight seemed to explode as the strong bird sheered out into the sunshine.

  The boy’s gun, slanting upward at thirty degrees, glittered in the sun an instant, then the left barrel spoke; and the grouse, as though struck by lightning in mid-air, stopped with a jerk, then slanted swiftly and struck the ground.

  “Dead!” cried the boy, as a setter appeared, leading on straight to the heavy mass of feathers lying on the pasture grass.

  “Clean work, Jim,” said his father, strolling out of the willows. “But wasn’t it a bit risky, considering the little girl yonder?”

  “Father!” exclaimed the boy, very red. “I never even saw her. I’m ashamed.”

  They stood looking across the pasture, where a little girl in a pink gingham dress lingered watching them, evidently lured by her curiosity from the old house at the crossroads just beyond.

  Jim Neeland, still red with mortification, took the big cock-grouse from the dog which brought it — a tender-mouthed, beautifully trained Belton, who stood with his feathered offering in his jaws, very serious, very proud, awaiting praise from the Neelands, father and son.

  Neeland senior “drew” the bird and distributed the sacrifice impartially between both dogs — it being the custom of the country.

  Neeland junior broke his gun, replaced the exploded shell, content indeed with his one hundred per cent performance.

  “Better run over and speak to the little girl, Jim,” suggested old Dick Neeland, as he motioned the dogs into covert again.

  So Jim ran lightly across the stony, clover-set ground to where the little girl roamed along the old snake fence, picking berries sometimes, sometimes watching the sportsmen out of shy, golden-grey eyes.

  “Little girl,” he said, “I’m afraid the shot from my gun came rattling rather close to you that time. You’ll have to be careful. I’ve noticed you here before. It won’t do; you’ll have to keep out of range of those bushes, because when we’re inside we can’t see exactly where we’re firing.”

  The child said nothing. She looked up at the boy, smiled shyly, then, with much composure, began her retreat, not neglecting any tempting blackberry on the way.

  The sun hung low over the hazy Gayfield hills; the beeches and oaks of Mohawk County burned brown and crimson; silver birches supported their delicate canopies of burnt gold; and imperial white pines clothed hill and vale in a stately robe of green.

  Jim Neeland forgot the child — or remembered her only to exercise caution in the Brookhollow covert.

  The little girl Ruhannah, who had once fidgeted with prickly heat in her mother’s arms outside the walls of Trebizond, did not forget this easily smiling, tall young fellow — a grown man to her — who had come across the pasture lot to warn her.

  But it was many a day before they met again, though these two also had been born under the invisible shadow of the Dark Star. But the shadow of Erlik is always passing like swift lightning across the Phantom Planet which has fled the other way since Time was born.

  Allahou Ekber, O Tchinguiz Khagan!

  A native Mongol missionary said to Ruhannah’s father:

  “As the chronicles of the Eighurs have it, long ago there fell metal from the Black Racer of the skies; the first dagger was made of it; and the first image of the Prince of Darkness. These pass from Kurd to Cossack by theft, by gift, by loss; they pass from nation to nation by accident, which is Divine design.

  “And where they remain, war is. And lasts until image and dagger are carried to another land where war shall be. But where there is war, only the predestined suffer — those born under Erlik — children of the Dark Star.”

  “I thought,” said the Reverend Wilbour Carew, “that my brother had confessed Christ.”

  “I am but repeating to you what my father believed; and Temujin before him,” replied the native convert, his remote gaze lost in reflection.

  His eyes were quite little and coloured like a lion’s; and sometimes, in deep reverie, the corners of his upper lip twitched.

  This happened when Ruhannah lay fretting in her mother’s arms, and the hot wind blew on Trebizond.<
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  * * * * *

  Under the Dark Star, too, a boy grew up in Minetta Lane, not less combative than other ragged boys about him, but he was inclined to arrange and superintend fist fights rather than to participate in battle, except with his wits.

  His name was Eddie Brandes; his first fortune of three dollars was amassed at craps; he became a hanger-on in ward politics, at race-tracks, stable, club, squared ring, vaudeville, burlesque. Long Acre attracted him — but always the gambling end of the operation.

  Which predilection, with its years of ups and downs, landed him one day in Western Canada with an “Unknown” to match against an Athabasca blacksmith, and a training camp as the prospect for the next six weeks.

  There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a Lost Province, and wearing the Iron Cross of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bony chest, now as hollow as a Gothic ruin.

  And if, like a thousand fellow patriots, he had been ordered to the Western World to watch and report to his Government the trend and tendency of that Western, English-speaking world, only his Government and his daughter knew it — a child of the Dark Star now grown to early womanhood, with a voice like a hermit thrush and the skill of a sorceress with anything that sped a bullet.

  * * * * *

  Before the Unknown was quite ready to meet the Athabasca blacksmith, Albrecht Dumont, dying faster now, signed his last report to the Government at Berlin, which his daughter Ilse had written for him — something about Canadian canals and stupid Yankees and their greed, indifference, cowardice, and sloth.

  Dumont’s mind wandered:

  “After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my post,” he whispered, “do thou pick up my burden and stand guard, little Ilse.”

  “Yes, father.”

  “Thy sacred promise?”

  “My promise.”

  * * * * *

  The next day Dumont felt better than he had felt for a year.

  “Ilse, who is the short and broadly constructed American who comes now already every day to see thee and to hear thee sing?”

  “His name is Eddie Brandes.”

  “He is of the fight gesellschaft, not?”

  “He should gain much money by the fight. A theatre in Chicago may he willingly control, in which light opera shall be given.”

  “Is it for that he hears so willingly thy voice?”

  “It is for that.... And love.”

  “And what of Herr Max Venem, who has asked of me thy little hand in marriage?”

  The girl was silent.

  “Thou dost not love him?”

  “No.”

  * * * * *

  Toward sunset, Dumont, lying by the window, opened his eyes of a dying Lämmergeier:

  “My Ilse.”

  “Father?”

  “What has thou to this man said?”

  “That I will be engaged to him if thou approve.”

  “He has gained the fight?”

  “Today.... And many thousand dollars. The theatre in Chicago is his when he desires. Riches, leisure, opportunity to study for a career upon his stage, are mine if I desire.”

  “Dost thou desire this, little Ilse?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the man Venem who has followed thee so long?”

  “I cannot be what he would have me — a Hausfrau — to mend his linen for my board and lodging.”

  “And the Fatherland which placed me here on outpost?”

  “I take thy place when God relieves thee.”

  “So ist’s recht!... Grüs Gott — Ilse — —”

  * * * * *

  Among the German settlers a five-piece brass band had been organised the year before.

  It marched at the funeral of Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a long-lost province.

  Three months later Ilse Dumont arrived in Chicago to marry Eddie Brandes. One Benjamin Stull was best man. Others present included “Captain” Quint, “Doc” Curfoot, “Parson” Smawley, Abe Gordon — friends of the bridegroom.

  Invited by the bride, among others were Theodor Weishelm, the Hon. Charles Wilson, M. P., and Herr Johann Kestner, a wealthy gentleman from Leipsic seeking safe and promising investments in Canada and the United States.

  * * * * *

  A year later Ilse Dumont Brandes, assuming the stage name of Minna Minti, sang the rôle of Bettina in “The Mascotte,” at the Brandes Theatre in Chicago.

  A year later, when she created the part of Kathi in “The White Horse,” Max Venem sent word to her that she would live to see her husband lying in the gutter under his heel. Which made the girl unhappy in her triumph.

  But Venem hunted up Abe Grittlefeld and told him very coolly that he meant to ruin Brandes.

  And within a month the latest public favourite, Minna Minti, sat in her dressing-room, wet-eyed, enraged, with the reports of Venem’s private detectives locked in the drawer of her dressing table, and the curtain waiting.

  * * * * *

  So complex was life already becoming to these few among the million children of the Dark Star Erlik — to everyone, from the child that fretted in its mother’s arms under the hot wind near Trebizond, to a deposed Sultan, cowering behind the ivory screen in his zenana, weeping tears that rolled like oil over his fat jowl to which still adhered the powdered sugar of a Turkish sweetmeat.

  Allahou Ekber, Khodja; God is great. Great also, Ande, is Ali, the Fourth Caliph, cousin-companion of Mahomet the Prophet. But, O tougtchi, be thy name Niaz and thy surname Baï, for Prince Erlik speeds on his Dark Star, and beneath the end of the argument between those two last survivors of a burnt-out world — behold! The sword!

  CHAPTER I

  THE WONDER-BOX

  As long as she could remember she had been permitted to play with the contents of the late Herr Conrad Wilner’s wonder-box. The programme on such occasions varied little; the child was permitted to rummage among the treasures in the box until she had satisfied her perennial curiosity; conversation with her absent-minded father ensued, which ultimately included a personal narrative, dragged out piecemeal from the reticent, dreamy invalid. Then always a few pages of the diary kept by the late Herr Wilner were read as a bedtime story. And bath and bed and dreamland followed. That was the invariable routine, now once more in full swing.

  Her father lay on his invalid’s chair, reading; his rubber-shod crutches rested against the wall, within easy reach. By him, beside the kerosene lamp, her mother sat, mending her child’s stockings and underwear.

  Outside the circle of lamplight the incandescent eyes of the stove glowed steadily through the semi-dusk; and the child, always fascinated by anything that aroused her imagination, lifted her gaze furtively from time to time to convince herself that it really was the big, familiar stove which glared redly back at her, and not a dragon into which her creative fancy had so often transformed it.

  Reassured, she continued to explore the contents of the wonder-box — a toy she preferred to her doll, but not to her beloved set of water-colours and crayon pencils.

  Some centuries ago Pandora’s box let loose a world of troubles; Herr Wilner’s box apparently contained only pleasure for a little child whose pleasures were mostly of her own invention.

  It was a curious old box, made of olive wood and bound with bands of some lacquered silvery metal to make it strong — rupee silver, perhaps — strangely wrought with Arabic characters engraved and in shallow relief. It had handles on either side, like a sea-chest; a silver-lacquered lock and hasp which retained traces of violent usage; and six heavy strap hinges of the same lacquered metal.

  Within it the little child knew that a most fascinating collection of articles was to be discovered, taken out one by one with greatest care, played with discreetly, and, at her mother’s command, returned to their several places in Herr Wilner’s box.

  There were, in this box, two rather murderous-looking Kurdish daggers in shea
ths of fretted silver — never to be unsheathed, it was solemnly understood, except by the child’s father.

  There was a pair of German army revolvers of the pattern of 1900, the unexploded cartridges of which had long since been extracted and cautiously thrown into the mill pond by the child’s mother, much to the surprise, no doubt, of the pickerel and sunfish.

  There were writing materials of sandalwood, a few sea shells, a dozen books in German with many steel plate engravings; also a red Turkish fez with a dark blue tassel; two pairs of gold-rimmed spectacles; several tobacco pipes of Dresden porcelain, a case full of instruments for mechanical drawing, a thick blank book bound in calf and containing the diary of the late Herr Wilner down to within a few minutes before his death.

  Also there was a figure in bronze, encrusted with tarnished gold and faded traces of polychrome decoration.

  Erlik, the Yellow Devil, as Herr Wilner called it, seemed too heavy to be a hollow casting, and yet, when shaken, something within rattled faintly, as though when the molten metal was cooling a fissure formed inside, into which a few loose fragments of bronze had fallen.

  It apparently had not been made to represent any benign Chinese god; the aspect of the yellow figure was anything but benevolent. The features were terrific; scowls infested its grotesque countenance; threatening brows bent inward; angry eyes rolled in apparent fury; its double gesture with sword and javelin was violent and almost humorously menacing. And Ruhannah adored it.

  For a little while the child played her usual game of frightening her doll with the Yellow Devil and then rescuing her by the aid of a fairy prince which she herself had designed, smeared with water-colours, and cut out with scissors from a piece of cardboard.

  After a time she turned to the remaining treasures in the wonder-box. These consisted of several volumes containing photographs, others full of sketches in pencil and water-colour, and a thick roll of glazed linen scrolls covered with designs in India ink.

  The photographs were of all sorts — landscapes, rivers, ships in dock, dry dock, and at sea; lighthouses, forts, horses carrying soldiers armed with lances and wearing the red fez; artillery on the march, infantry, groups of officers, all wearing the same sort of fez which lay there in Herr Wilner’s box of olive wood.