Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  All around were scattered quaint and curious jars and retorts of coarse glass and metal. Rows of bottles of different shapes and sizes stood upon the shelves, and in the corner was a great heap of mouldering, dusty books, huge of size, and fastened with metal clasps. Built into the middle of the farther wall was a wide brick chimney-place, black with ancient soot, wherein were several furnaces of different sizes, all long since cold, and with the sparks of fiery life dead in their bosoms. Nevertheless, everything had been left as though the room had been newly deserted. One pot-bellied retort reclined tipsily upon its bed of cold gray ashes; a mortar stood upon the hob of another furnace with the pestle in it; a book, held open by a glass rod across the pages, lay near by, as though for reference.

  In the centre of the room stood a square pillar or table of stone, and upon it were two bottles containing a clear, limpid liquid, in appearance like distilled water. Each was stoppered with glass, and sealed besides with a great mass of blood-red wax. Upon each of the bottles was pasted a square parchment label. One was marked in red pigment, thus — . The other was marked thus — in black. Oliver knew that these were the bottles for which he had been sent.

  He hesitated a moment; then, reaching forth his hand, he took first one and then the other, and thrust them into his pocket.

  He had reached the ending of his task.

  Then of a sudden it was as though a wave of renewed life swept over him.

  He thought nothing of the greater dangers that must still await him above, at the mouth of the trap, though he had there read death in the master’s eyes. He was unreasonably, unthinkingly elated; it was as though he had reached the ending of a long nightmare journey, and as though his face was turned towards the light again. It was with firmer and less fearful steps that he retraced his way through the dining-room and the room beyond, where lay that silent, grisly sleeper, and so came to the door-way with the blood-red line drawn around it.

  Then he stopped and looked up.

  At the square mouth of the shaft he saw the two faces still peering down at him, the face of Gaspard and the face of the master side by side.

  Again, and for the third time, the master asked him the question, “Have you found the bottles of water?”

  “Yes,” said Oliver, “I have found them.”

  “Then give them to me,” said the other, in a ringing voice, and he reached his arm down towards Oliver where he still stood in the door-way, around which was drawn the blood-red line.

  In the reaction from the prostration of fear which had been upon Oliver for all this time, in the new elation which possessed him, it was as though he had come up from out of the dark waters which had overwhelmed him, and stood again upon the firm ground of courage.

  “Yes,” said he, “very good, my dear American uncle, but wait a little; what then is to come of me if I give you these two bottles of water?”

  The other drew back his hand. “Did I not promise,” said he, “to make you rich for as long as you lived?”

  “Yes,” said Oliver, “you did, but I do not believe you. Suppose that I give you these two bottles, how do I then know that you will not bang down that trap upon me, and lock me in here to die alone in a day or two?”

  “Then come up here,” said the other, “if you are afraid.”

  “Yes,” said Oliver; “but last night I saw something—” He stopped short, for the recollection of it stuck in his throat. “Suppose you should hand me over to Gaspard and his black bag;” and he shuddered with a sudden creep at the thought of it.

  The master’s face grew as black as thunder, and his eyes shone blue in the light of the lantern. “Peste!” he cried, stamping his foot upon the stone pavement. “Do you chaffer with me? Will you give me the water, or will you not?”

  “No,” cried Oliver; “not until you promise to let me go safe back home.”

  “You will not give the bottles to me?”

  “No!”

  There was a pause for a moment, but only for a moment. Then there was a snarl like the snarl of a wild beast— “Gaspard!” cried the master. As he cried he leaped forward and down, two steps at a time, with the servant at his heels.

  Oliver ran back into the room, yelling, stumbled over the corner of a rug, dropped the lantern, and fell flat upon the floor, where he lay, with his face buried in his hands, screaming with terror. In his ears rang a confused noise of snarls and cries and oaths and scuffling feet, but no hand was laid upon him. Moment after moment passed. Oliver raised his face from his hands, and looked fearfully over his shoulder.

  At the open door-way stood Gaspard and his master, with white faces and gleaming teeth, dancing and hopping up and down, tossing their hooked, claw-like hands in the air, foaming with rage, snarling and gnashing like wolves. The lantern which Oliver had dropped still burned with a sickly, flickering gleam, for the candle had not gone out, and it was partly by the light of it that he beheld them.

  Then, like a flash of lightning, he saw it all: they could not cross that red line drawn across the door-way.

  Oliver’s courage came back to him with a bound. He sat up and looked at them struggling and striving to get at him, and kept back as by an unseen wall of adamant. Instinctively he reached out and raised the overturned lantern, for the light was on the verge of flickering out.

  “Promise me that I shall reach home safe and sound,” said he, “and you shall yet have the two bottles.”

  “AT THE OPEN DOOR-WAY STOOD GASPARD AND HIS MASTER.”

  The master did not seem to hear him. Oliver repeated the words. Then suddenly the other ceased from the violence of his gestures and exclamations, shook himself, and stood erect, pulled down his lace cuffs, and wiped his face with his cambric handkerchief. Then he fixed upon Oliver a basilisk glance, and smiled a dreadful smile.

  “Gaspard,” said he, “let us go.”

  He turned and walked up the stone steps again, closely followed by his servant, and poor Oliver sat staring stonily after them.

  Above, the master gave an order. Oliver heard a grating, grinding noise. There was a crash that echoed clamorously through the stillness, a clanking rattle, a grating screech, a click, and then the silence of death.

  Gaspard had shut and locked the trap-door above.

  Oliver sat dazed and bewildered by the suddenness of what had happened. Presently he turned his head mechanically and looked around, and his eyes fell upon the silent occupant of the bed.

  Then he leaped to his feet, and up the steep flight of stone steps like a madman. He dashed his fist against the cold iron lid above his head. “Open,” he shouted— “open and let me out. Let me out and you shall have everything. Here are the bottles of water. Do you not want them?”

  He stopped short and listened, crouching upon the upper step, close against the iron lid above him. He fancied he heard a faint sound of footsteps.

  “Let me out!” he screamed again.

  Nothing but dead, solemn silence.

  Oliver ran down the steps again, the accursed glass bottles clicking together in his pocket. In the narrow vestibule below he stood for a moment, gazing down upon the floor in the utter abandonment of blank despair. At last he looked up, and then crawled fearfully forward into the room beyond, lit by the faint glow of the lantern. He sat him down upon the floor, and burst out crying. By-and-by a blind rage filled his heart against the cruelty of his fate and against the man who had brought it all upon him. He sprang to his feet, and began striding up and down the room, muttering to himself and shaking his head. Presently he stopped, raised his clinched fists in the air and shook them. Then he broke into a laugh. “Very well,” said he; “but you have not got the bottles of water!” and he felt his pockets; they were still there.

  Then, as he stood there feeling the bottles in his pocket, the last misfortune of all happened to him. There was a flare, a sputter, and then — utter darkness.

  The light in the lantern had gone out.

  Scene Fifth. — The same.

  Oli
ver stood for a while utterly stupefied by this new blow that had fallen upon him; then, with his hands stretched out in the darkness and feeling before him with his feet, he moved blindly forward. At last he found the lantern where it stood upon the floor, and kneeling down he raised the lid and felt within. Even if he had found a candle, it would have been of no use to him, for he could not have lighted it, but nothing was there but the hot, melted grease in which the wick had expired.

  Oliver sat down upon the floor and hid his face upon his knees. How long he sat there he never could tell; it might have been seconds, it might have been minutes, it might have been an hour; for, like one in a broken sleep, there was to him no measurement of time.

  Suddenly a thought flashed upon him, like light in the darkness: he remembered the chimney in the room beyond. Why should he not escape in that way? At the thought a great torrent of hope swept upon him; his heart swelled as though it would burst. He rose to his feet, and feeling blindly in the blackness, came first to the table, and then to the tapestried wall beyond. Inch by inch, and foot by foot he felt his way along it, now stumbling over a cushioned couch in the darkness, and now over the edge of one of the rugs. So at last he came to the corner of the room. Thence with out-stretched fingers he felt his way along over the silent folds of the hangings until he met the emptiness of the door-way.

  In the same manner he crept along the wall of the room beyond, overturning in his passage a light table laden with plates and glasses, that fell with a deafening crash and tinkle of broken glass. Oliver paused for a moment in the bewilderment of the sudden noise, and then began his slow onward way again.

  Thus crawling slowly along, and guiding himself by the walls, he came out through the passage-way beyond the dining apartment, and so into the laboratory. Here he had no difficulty in finding the chimney, for the moonlight shed a faint, ghostly light down the broad flue above, glimmering in a pale flickering sheen upon the bottles and glass retorts that stood around.

  “CREEPING CAUTIOUSLY FORWARD, OLIVER CAME TO THE CHIMNEY-PIECE.”

  Creeping cautiously forward, Oliver came to the chimney-place, climbed upon one of the furnaces, and peered upward. Not twenty feet above he could see the silvery moonlit sky. Then his heart sank within him like a plummet of lead. For just over his head were grated bars of iron, thick and ponderous, that, crossing the chimney from side to side, were built into the solid brick and stone masonry of the flue. Oliver clambered down out of the furnace again, and sat him down upon the edge of it. There for a time he perched, staring despairingly into the darkness beyond. “What shall I do next?” he muttered to himself— “what shall I do next?”

  It could serve no use for him to stay where he was, among the crucibles and retorts; he might as well go into one of the other rooms. There, at least, would be a comfortable place to rest himself, and he began to feel heavily and stupidly sleepy.

  Foot by foot and step by step he felt his way back again into the farthest room. He gave no thought to that other occupant, hushed in the silent sleep of death; but flinging himself down upon the first couch that he found, gathered the musty, mildewed cushions under his head, closed his eyes, and sunk heavily into the depths of a dark, dreamless sleep.

  How long Oliver Munier lay in the blankness of this heavy sleep he could never know. It must have been for a great while, as he afterwards discovered. His waking was sudden and sharp, and even before he was fairly awake he knew that he heard a sound.

  He opened his eyes wide and listened. There was a soft rustling, a velvety footfall, and the sound of quick, short breathing, in the silent darkness, like that of a little child. Finally he heard a suppressed sneeze.

  He sat up upon the couch, and at the noise of his movements the other sound ceased, only for the quick breathing.

  “Who is there?” whispered Oliver through the darkness.

  For a moment or two the silence was unbroken; then came a dull, monotonous, musical sound, somewhat like the humming of a hive of bees, but rougher and more rattling. Oliver, listening with all his soul, heard the same rustling footsteps as before, and now they were coming straight towards him. There was a moment’s pause, and then something leaped upon the couch beside him.

  Oliver sat as though turned to stone.

  He felt a faint breath upon his hand as it rested upon the cushion at his side, and then something pressed against his wrist and his arm. It was soft, warm, furry. It was a cat.

  In the gush of relief at this honest, homely animal companionship Oliver broke down from his tension of nervous strain to laughing and crying at once. Reaching out his hand, he began to stroke the creature, whereupon it bowed its back and rubbed against him in dumb response.

  A sudden light flashed upon him. The cat was alive; it was good honest flesh and blood; there was nothing ghostly or demoniacal about it; where it had entered it would have to go forth again, and where it so passed to and fro there must be some means of ingress and egress. Why should he not avail himself of its aid to find his way out into the daylight again?

  In a few moments he had torn the mouldy silken covers of one of the cushions into small strips, had twisted these strips into a cord, and had then tied the cord around the cat’s neck. Wherever the creature went now he would follow as a blind man follows his dog. He began to whistle in the excess of his relief at the new light of hope which had dawned upon him. The sound awoke shrill echoes in the black vaulted spaces, and he stopped abruptly. “Very well,” said he, half aloud. “But nevertheless, my American uncle, here is a new way out of our troubles.”

  By force of habit he thrust his hands into his pocket; the two bottles of water were still there.

  It seemed to Oliver an age before this miraculously sent conductor, this feline saving angel, made ready to take its departure. It was hours; but there was nothing for him to do but to wait patiently for the creature to choose its own time for leaving, for should he undertake to urge it, it might grow frightened and break away from him, and so lose him the clew of escape. Yes, there was nothing to do but to wait patiently until his guide chose to bestir itself.

  Oliver was ravenously hungry, but once or twice, in spite of the gnawing of his stomach, he fell into a doze in the dead, monotonous silence of the place. Nevertheless, through all his napping, he held tight to the silken cord. It was from such a doze as this that he was awakened by feeling a twitching at the silken string, which he had wrapped around his hand for the sake of precaution. The cat was stirring.

  Oliver loosened the cord so as to give the animal as much freedom as possible, and then rose to his feet. The cat, disturbed by his moving, leaped lightly to the floor. It gave a faint mew, and rubbed once or twice against his legs. Oliver waited with a beating heart. At last the cat started straight across the floor, and Oliver, holding the string, followed after it. The next minute he ran against the corner of the table, stumbled over the chair that stood beside it, overturning the mildewed lute, which fell with a hollow, musical crash.

  The cat had gone under the table, and Oliver had perforce to go down upon his hands and knees and follow. When he arose again he was bewildered, and knew not where he was; he had lost his bearings in the blank darkness around him.

  The cat had become alarmed, and was now struggling at the string that held it, and Oliver was afraid that it would snap the cord and get away from him. He followed more rapidly, and the next moment pitched headlong across the couch in the corner. The silent occupant rattled dryly, and Oliver heard something fall with a crash upon the floor, roll for a space, and then vibrate into silence. “Oh, mon Dieu!” he cried, and crossed himself. He knew very well what it was that had fallen. But the cat was now struggling furiously, and there was no time to lose in qualms. He scrambled to his feet, still holding tight to the silken cord. There was no trouble now in following the lead of the animal. The next moment his head struck with terrible force against the hard stone wall; he saw forty thousand swimming stars, and for a moment was stunned and bewildered with the force o
f the blow.

  When his wits came back to him the cat was gone, but he still held the end of the silken cord in his hand. He stooped, and felt the direction which the cord took. It ran between two of the lighter silken hangings upon the wall. He parted them and felt within, and his hand encountered empty nothingness. He felt above, below, and on each side, and his touch met the smooth, cold stones of the wall. The open space was about two feet high and three feet wide. It was thence the cat had gone.

  Oliver’s only chance was to follow after; accordingly he dropped upon his knees and felt within. For a foot or more the bottom of the space ran upon a line of the floor, then it dropped suddenly and sheerly as the wall of a house. How far it was to the bottom Oliver had no means of knowing. He reached down at arm’s-length, but could not touch it. He crawled out of the hole again, and then reversing himself, went in feet foremost. He dropped his legs over the edge of the open space, but still he felt nothing. Upon either side he could touch the sides of the passage with his toes; below, they touched nothing. He dropped himself lower, but still felt nothing. Lower still, and still felt nothing. He let himself go to his arm’s-length, and hung there flat against the wall, and felt about with his feet, but still they touched nothing.

  How far was it to the bottom of that black passage? If he let go his hold, would he be dashed to pieces below? A great wave of fright swept over him, and he struggled vehemently to raise himself up to the edge of the hole again whence he had descended, but he was helpless, powerless. In his frantic struggles his feet clashed against the sides of the passage-way, but he could nowhere gain purchase to raise himself so much as a foot.

  His struggles grew fainter and fainter, and at last he hung helplessly clinging to the edge of the hole above him with cramped and nervous fingers. A red light seemed to dance before his eyes, and he felt his strength crumbling away from him like undermined earth. He breathed a short prayer, loosed his hold — and fell about six inches to the bottom of the shaft beneath.