Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  A shadow, a mass, huge, undefined, rose to his right. He recognized the Arc de Triomphe and gravely shook his cane at it. Its size annoyed him. He felt it was too big. Then he heard something fall clattering to the pavement and thought probably it was his cane but it didn’t much matter. When he had mastered himself and regained control of his right leg, which betrayed symptoms of insubordination, he found himself traversing the Place de la Concorde at a pace which threatened to land him at the Madeleine. This would never do. He turned sharply to the right and crossing the bridge passed the Palais Bourbon at a trot and wheeled into the Boulevard St. Germain. He got on well enough although the size of the War Office struck him as a personal insult, and he missed his cane, which it would have been pleasant to drag along the iron railings as he passed. It occurred to him, however, to substitute his hat, but when he found it he forgot what he wanted it for and replaced it upon his head with gravity. Then he was obliged to battle with a violent inclination to sit down and weep. This lasted until he came to the rue de Rennes, but there he became absorbed in contemplating the dragon on the balcony overhanging the Cour du Dragon, and time slipped away until he remembered vaguely that he had no business there, and marched off again. It was slow work. The inclination to sit down and weep had given place to a desire for solitary and deep reflection. Here his right leg forgot its obedience and attacking the left, outflanked it and brought him up against a wooden board which seemed to bar his path. He tried to walk around it, but found the street closed. He tried to push it over, and found he couldn’t. Then he noticed a red lantern standing on a pile of paving-stones inside the barrier. This was pleasant. How was he to get home if the boulevard was blocked? But he was not on the boulevard. His treacherous right leg had beguiled him into a detour, for there, behind him lay the boulevard with its endless line of lamps, — and here, what was this narrow dilapidated street piled up with earth and mortar and heaps of stone? He looked up. Written in staring black letters on the barrier was

  RUE BARRÉE.

  He sat down. Two policemen whom he knew came by and advised him to get up, but he argued the question from a standpoint of personal taste, and they passed on, laughing. For he was at that moment absorbed in a problem. It was, how to see Rue Barrée. She was somewhere or other in that big house with the iron balconies, and the door was locked, but what of that? The simple idea struck him to shout until she came. This idea was replaced by another equally lucid, — to hammer on the door until she came; but finally rejecting both of these as too uncertain, he decided to climb into the balcony, and opening a window politely inquire for Rue Barrée. There was but one lighted window in the house that he could see. It was on the second floor, and toward this he cast his eyes. Then mounting the wooden barrier and clambering over the piles of stones, he reached the sidewalk and looked up at the façade for a foothold. It seemed impossible. But a sudden fury seized him, a blind, drunken obstinacy, and the blood rushed to his head, leaping, beating in his ears like the dull thunder of an ocean. He set his teeth, and springing at a window-sill, dragged himself up and hung to the iron bars. Then reason fled; there surged in his brain the sound of many voices, his heart leaped up beating a mad tattoo, and gripping at cornice and ledge he worked his way along the façade, clung to pipes and shutters, and dragged himself up, over and into the balcony by the lighted window. His hat fell off and rolled against the pane. For a moment he leaned breathless against the railing — then the window was slowly opened from within.

  They stared at each other for some time. Presently the girl took two unsteady steps back into the room. He saw her face, — all crimsoned now, — he saw her sink into a chair by the lamplit table, and without a word he followed her into the room, closing the big door-like panes behind him. Then they looked at each other in silence.

  The room was small and white; everything was white about it, — the curtained bed, the little wash-stand in the corner, the bare walls, the china lamp, — and his own face, — had he known it, but the face and neck of Rue were surging in the colour that dyed the blossoming rose-tree there on the hearth beside her. It did not occur to him to speak. She seemed not to expect it. His mind was struggling with the impressions of the room. The whiteness, the extreme purity of everything occupied him — began to trouble him. As his eye became accustomed to the light, other objects grew from the surroundings and took their places in the circle of lamplight. There was a piano and a coal-scuttle and a little iron trunk and a bath-tub. Then there was a row of wooden pegs against the door, with a white chintz curtain covering the clothes underneath. On the bed lay an umbrella and a big straw hat, and on the table, a music-roll unfurled, an ink-stand, and sheets of ruled paper. Behind him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care to see his own face just then. He was sobering.

  The girl sat looking at him without a word. Her face was expressionless, yet the lips at times trembled almost imperceptibly. Her eyes, so wonderfully blue in the daylight, seemed dark and soft as velvet, and the colour on her neck deepened and whitened with every breath. She seemed smaller and more slender than when he had seen her in the street, and there was now something in the curve of her cheek almost infantine. When at last he turned and caught his own reflection in the mirror behind him, a shock passed through him as though he had seen a shameful thing, and his clouded mind and his clouded thoughts grew clearer. For a moment their eyes met then his sought the floor, his lips tightened, and the struggle within him bowed his head and strained every nerve to the breaking. And now it was over, for the voice within had spoken. He listened, dully interested but already knowing the end, — indeed it little mattered; — the end would always be the same for him; — he understood now — always the same for him, and he listened, dully interested, to a voice which grew within him. After a while he stood up, and she rose at once, one small hand resting on the table. Presently he opened the window, picked up his hat, and shut it again. Then he went over to the rose-bush and touched the blossoms with his face. One was standing in a glass of water on the table and mechanically the girl drew it out, pressed it with her lips and laid it on the table beside him. He took it without a word and crossing the room, opened the door. The landing was dark and silent, but the girl lifted the lamp and gliding past him slipped down the polished stairs to the hallway. Then unchaining the bolts, she drew open the iron wicket.

  Through this he passed with his rose.

  THE END

  THE MAKER OF MOONS

  Chambers followed up his first collection with this second offering of eight short stories, first published in 1896. The title story is considered one of his finest weird tales and is linked to the two stories that follow it (‘The Silent Land’ and ‘The Black Water’) by the mysterious ‘dream wife’, Ysonde.

  This weird triptych is followed by an historical adventure story set during the American Civil War (‘In the Name of the Most High’) and two romantic Art Nouveau stories in the vein of Chambers’ early novels.

  The collection is rounded off with two further weird tales, ‘A Pleasant Evening’ and ‘The Man at the Next Table’, both of which were subsequently incorporated into the episodic science fiction novel In Search of the Unknown.

  Cover of the first edition

  CONTENTS

  THE MAKER OF MOONS.

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  THE SILENT LAND.

  THE BLACK WATER.

  IN THE NAME OF THE MOST HIGH.

  THE BOY’S SISTER.

  THE CRIME.

  A PLEASANT EVENING.

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  THE MAN AT THE NEXT TABLE.

  Illustration depicting a scene from the title story

  TO MY FATHER

  THE MAKER OF MOONS.
/>   I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is —

  And I say there is in fact no evil;

  (Or if there is, I say it is just as important to you,

  to the land, or to me, as anything else.)

  Each is not for its own sake;

  I say the whole earth, and all the stars in the sky

  are for Religion’s sake.

  I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough;

  None has ever adored or worshipped half enough;

  None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and

  how certain the future is.

  — WALT WHITMAN

  I have heard what the Talkers were talking, — the talk

  Of the beginning and the end;

  But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

  Chapter I

  Concerning Yue-Laou and the Xin I know nothing more than you shall know. I am miserably anxious to clear the matter up. Perhaps what I write may save the United Stares Government money and lives, perhaps it may arouse the scientific world to action; at any rate it will put an end to the terrible suspense of two people. Certainty is better than suspense.

  If the Government dares to disregard this warning and refuses to send a thoroughly equipped expedition at once, the people of the State may take swift vengeance on the whole region and leave a blackened devastated waste where to-day forest and flowering meadow land border the lake in the Cardinal Woods.

  You already know part of the story; the New York papers have been full of alleged details.

  This much is true: Barris caught the “Shiner,” red handed, or rather yellow handed, for his pockets and boots and dirty fists were stuffed with lumps of gold. I say gold, advisedly. You may call it what you please. You also know how Barris was — but unless I begin at the beginning of my own experiences you will be none the wiser after all.

  On the third of August of this present year I was standing in Tiffany’s, chatting with George Godfrey of the designing department. On the glass counter between us lay a coiled serpent, an exquisite specimen of chiselled gold.

  “No,” replied Godfrey to my question, “it isn’t my work; I wish it was. Why, man, it’s a masterpiece!”

  “Whose?” I asked...”Now I should be very glad to know also,” said Godfrey. “We bought it from an old jay who says he lives in the country somewhere about the Cardinal Woods. That’s near Starlit Lake, I believe—”

  “Lake of the Stars?” I suggested.

  “Some call it Starlit Lake, — it’s all the same. Well, my rustic Reuben says that he represents the sculptor of this snake for all practical and business purposes. He got his price too. We hope he’ll bring us something more. We have sold this already to the Metropolitan Museum.”

  I was leaning idly on the glass case, watching the keen eyes of the artist in precious metals as he stooped over the gold serpent.

  “A masterpiece!” he muttered to himself fondling the glittering coil; “look at the texture! whew!” But I was not looking at the serpent. Something was moving, — crawling out of Godfrey’s coat pocket, — the pocket nearest to me, — something soft and yellow with crab-like legs all covered with coarse yellow hair.

  “What in Heaven’s name,” said I, “have you got in your pocket? It’s crawling out — it’s trying to creep up your coat, Godfrey!”

  He turned quickly and dragged the creature out with his left hand.

  I shrank back as he held the repulsive object dangling before me, and he laughed and placed it on the counter.

  “Did you ever see anything like that?” he demanded.

  “No,” said I truthfully, “and I hope I never shall again. What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Ask them at the Natural History Museum — they can’t tell you. The Smithsonian is all at sea too. It is, I believe, the connecting link between a sea-urchin, a spider, and the devil. It looks venomous but I can’t find either fangs or mouth. Is it blind? These things may be eyes but they look as if they were painted. A Japanese sculptor might have produced such an impossible beast, but it is hard to believe that God did. It looks unfinished too. I have a mad idea that this creature is only one of the parts of some larger and more grotesque organism, — it looks so lonely, so hopelessly dependent, so cursedly unfinished. I’m going to use it as a model. If I don’t out-Japanese the Japs my name isn’t Godfrey.”

  The creature was moving slowly across the glass case towards me. I drew back.

  “Godfrey,” I said, “I would execute a man who executed any such work as you propose. What do you want to perpetuate such a reptile for? I can stand the Japanese grotesque but I can’t stand that — spider—”

  “It’s a crab.”

  “Crab or spider or blind-worm — ugh! What do you want to do it for? It’s a nightmare — it’s unclean!”

  I hated the thing. It was the first living creature that I had ever hated.

  For some time I had noticed a damp acrid odour in the air, and Godfrey said it came from the reptile.

  “Then kill it and bury it,” I said; “and by the way, where did it come from?”

  “I don’t know that either,” laughed Godfrey; “I found it clinging to the box that this gold serpent was brought in. I suppose my old Reuben is responsible.”

  “If the Cardinal Woods are the lurking places for things like this,” said I, “I am sorry that I am going to the Cardinal Woods.”

  “Are you?” asked Godfrey; “for the shooting?”

  “Yes, with Barris and Pierpont. Why don’t you kill that creature?”

  “Go off on your shooting trip, and let me alone,” laughed Godfrey...I shuddered at the “crab,” and bade Godfrey good-bye until December.

  That night, Pierpont, Barris, and I sat chatting in the smoking-car of the Quebec Express when the long train pulled out of the Grand Central Depot. Old David had gone forward with the dogs; poor things, they hated to ride in the baggage car, but the Quebec and Northern road provides no sportsman’s cars, and David and the three Gordon setters were in for an uncomfortable night.

  Except for Pierpont, Barris, and myself, the car was empty. Barris, trim, stout, ruddy, and bronzed, sat drumming on the window ledge, puffing a short fragrant pipe. His gun-case lay beside him on the floor.

  “When I have white hair and years of discretion,” said Pierpont languidly, “I’ll not flirt with pretty serving-maids; will you, Roy?”

  “No,” said I, looking at Barris.

  “You mean the maid with the cap in the Pullman car?” asked Barris.

  “Yes,” said Pierpont.

  I smiled, for I had seen it also.

  Barris twisted his crisp grey moustache, and yawned.

  “You children had better be toddling off to bed,” he said. “That lady’s-maid is a member of the Secret Service.”

  “Oh,” said Pierpont, “one of your colleagues?”

  “You might present us, you know,” I said; “the journey is monotonous.”

  Barris had drawn a telegram from his pocket, and as he sat turning it over and over between his fingers he smiled. After a moment or two he handed it to Pierpont who read it with slightly raised eyebrows.

  “It’s rot, — I suppose it’s cipher,” he said; “I see it’s signed by General Drummond—”

  “Drummond, Chief of the Government Secret Service,” said Barris.

  “Something interesting?” I enquired, lighting a cigarette.

  “Something so interesting,” replied Barris, “that I’m going to look into it myself—”

  “And break up our shooting trio—”

  “No. Do you want to hear about it? Do you, Billy Pierpont?”

  “Yes,” replied that immaculate young man.

  Barris rubbed the amber mouth-piece of his pipe on his handkerchief, cleared the stem with a bit of wire, puffed once or twice, and leaned back in his chair.

  “Pierpont,” he said, “do you remember that evening at the United States Club when General Miles, General Drum
mond, and I were examining that gold nugget that Captain Mahan had? You examined it also, I believe.”

  “I did,” said Pierpont.

  “Was it gold?” asked Barris, drumming on the window.

  “It was,” replied Pierpont.

  “I saw it too,” said I; “of course, it was gold.”

  “Professor La Grange saw it also,” said Barris; “he said it was gold.”

  “Well?” said Pierpont.

  “Well,” said Barris, “it was not gold.”

  After a silence Pierpont asked what tests had been made.

  “The usual tests,” replied Barris. “The United States Mint is satisfied that it is gold, so is every jeweller who has seen it. But it is not gold, — and yet — it is gold.”

  Pierpont and I exchanged glances.

  “Now,” said I, “for Barris’ usual coup-de-théâtre: what was the nugget?”

  “Practically it was pure gold; but,” said Barris, enjoying the situation intensely, “really it was not gold. Pierpont, what is gold?”

  “Gold’s an element, a metal—”

  “Wrong! Billy Pierpont,” said Barris coolly.

  “Gold was an element when I went to school,” said I.

  “It has not been an element for two weeks,” said Barris; “and, except General Drummond, Professor La Grange, and myself, you two youngsters are the only people, except one, in the world who know it, — or have known it.”

  “Do you mean to say that gold is a composite metal?” said Pierpont slowly.

  “I do. La Grange has made it. He produced a scale of pure gold day before yesterday. That nugget was manufactured gold.”

  Could Barris be joking? Was this a colossal hoax? I looked at Pierpont. He muttered something about that settling the silver question, and turned his head to Barris, but there was that in Barris’ face which forbade jesting, and Pierpont and I sat silently pondering.