by Howard Pyle
At these words, spoken with perfect sobriety and every appearance of candor, our young gentleman presented, it must be confessed, a rather silly face. “Upon my word,” he said with as easy a laugh as he could assume for the occasion, “I am very well pleased that my present surroundings afford you satisfaction. I can only say, however, that I am glad you are not likely to come to me as a client; for your respect for my parts could hardly be augmented by finding me so engaged.”
“As to that,” returned the stranger, with unrelaxed sobriety, “you will no doubt be additionally surprised to learn that I do indeed come to you as a client to his attorney.”
“Then, indeed, sir,” cried our young gentleman, who began again sagely to suspect that a hoax was being put upon him, “you have my word of honor that I am at a loss to guess why you are satisfied to find me indulging in such folly and intemperance as that which you discovered when you favored us with this unexpected visit.”
“As to that,” said the stranger, “I can easily enlighten you. The nature of the business in which I would employ you is of such a sort as to demand the attention of one not only possessed of spirit and courage and an entire command of unoccupied time, but also of one possessed of other and very different qualifications. To this end I have made diligent inquiries; and I have conceived the opinion that you are a man not only possessed of considerable parts, but of an honesty sufficient to carry you through so delicate and dangerous a commission as that with which I have to intrust you.”
At these words, our young gentleman knew not what face to assume; nor could he yet tell whether to regard the whole affair as a hoax or as the beginning of a more serious adventure. “Upon my word, sir,” he cried, “you pique my curiosity. But, if I am to believe what you tell me, I must be better assured of your truth. I am, as you may well believe, too knowing a bird to be caught by chaff.”
“Indeed,” said the other, “you yourself can alone prove the sincerity of my words; nor would it in the least remove the doubts that you entertain of my sincerity, should I inform you that the business upon which you will be employed concerns the possible murder of my own self. If, however, you are the man of mettle I suppose you to be, you have only to accompany me in the conveyance that awaits below, and you can then and there satisfy yourself as to whether I have spoken with veracity or with dis-ingenuousness.”
By this time, as may be believed, the assembly of young bucks had fallen entirely silent; nor could our young attorney compose himself to any frame of mind to digest the credibility of that which he heard. “I protest,” he cried at last, “the more you tell me, the more my belief is increased that you have a purpose to make me the victim of a jest. Nevertheless, if what you have just said is offered as a challenge, you shall find me your man; for I declare that I am not afraid to accompany you or any other man, wherever you may choose to conduct.”
“BIDDING HIS COMPANIONS TO AWAIT HIS RETURN ... HE FOLLOWED HIS INTERLOCUTOR”
Thereupon, bidding his companions to await his return, he arose, and, removing his cocked hat with its parti-colored ribbons from its peg upon the wall where it hung, he followed his interlocutor down the staircase to the street below.
Here he discovered a very handsome cabriolet with red wheels, into which, at the bidding of his companion, our young gentleman stepped, the other following him and closing the door with a crash. Thereupon the driver instantly whipped up his horses, and drove away at an extremely rapid rate of speed.
The curtains of the window had been closed, so that our young lawyer was entirely at a loss as to whither he was being conveyed, excepting that the cabriolet continued rattling over the stony streets, and that it turned several corners at an undiminished rate of speed. Nor did his companion speak a word until the vehicle was drawn up to the sidewalk with a suddenness that nearly precipitated our hero from his seat. Almost instantly the door was opened, and the attorney, following his conductor, stepped out upon the sidewalk at what appeared to be the back gate of a considerable garden that partly enclosed the back buildings of a large and imposing edifice standing at a little distance, its outlines nearly lost in the obscurity of the night beyond.
What with the many turnings of the conveyance that had brought him thither, and what with the fruitless surmises and speculations as to his destination, Griscombe was as entirely at a loss to tell whither he had been fetched or what was the situation of the building he now beheld as he would have been, had he been transported into another world. Nor did his companion give him time for surmises or suppositions; for, drawing forth from his breeches pocket a key, he opened the gate, and immediately introduced our hero through a dark and wind-swept garden and by the back door into the kitchen of the residence, which was illuminated by the light of a single candle.
With no more illumination than this latter could afford, the stranger thence led the way through the dark but richly furnished spaces of a silent and sleeping house of palatial dimensions, until at the further extremity of the building he finally conducted our young lawyer into a large and nobly appointed library. Here a lingering fire of coals still burned in the marble fireplace, diffusing a grateful warmth throughout the apartment, at the same time lending a soft and ruddy illumination by means of which our hero was able with but little difficulty to distinguish the stateliness and profusion of his surroundings. The heavy and luxuriant folds of rich and heavy tapestry sheltered the windows; soft and luxuriant rugs of Oriental pattern lay spread in quantities upon the floor; the walls were hung with paintings glowing with color and of the most exquisite outlines; beautifully bound books crowded the cases that surrounded the room, and the marble mantel glistened with ormolu and crystal adornments.
Meantime his conductor, having lit a quantity of wax candles upon the mantel-shelf, and having laid aside the mask that for all this while had concealed his identity, turned at last to our hero a face whose lineaments, though extremely handsome, were as pale as wax and furrowed with the lines of a most consuming care. A quantity of hair as black as ebony curled about his alabaster forehead, and he fixed upon his visitor a pair of large and sombre eyes whose piercing brilliancy betrayed an illimitable anxiety of soul. Beautiful, however, as was the countenance presented to the observer, there was in the hardness of its lines and the thin and compressed nervousness of the lips a stern relentlessness of expression that the smouldering and sinister fire which glowed in the eyes alone might be needed to enflame into a conflagration of rage and of cruelty.
Having motioned Griscombe to a soft and luxuriant seat upon the other side of the fire, himself leaning with an elegant ease against the mantel-shelf, this strange and singular being composed himself as though with a considerable effort, and addressed to his listener the following extraordinary discourse, without any preface whatever: —
“You will doubtless be considerably surprised,” he said, “to learn that you behold before you one who feels well assured that he is already condemned to an unknown death that shall visit him perhaps within the course of a day or two — perhaps within the course of a few hours. I know perfectly well that you may be inclined even to doubt the truth of so extraordinary a statement or to question the entire sanity of one who propounds so startling a statement. Nor can I even enter into such an account of my miserable circumstances as shall convince you at once of my truthfulness and of my sanity, without involving you also in the danger in which I lie entrapped. Should you be the recipient of my confidence, certain death would probably await you, as I believe it awaits me; and you would thus be prevented from carrying out the important commission that I am now about to impose upon you.”
It may be rather imagined than described into what a state of amazement, not to say stupefaction, our hero was cast by so extraordinary a prologue. He sat, sunk into a perfectly inert silence, gazing at the singular and tragic being before him, without possessing, as it were, the power of making a single movement. At another time his absurd and preposterous figure, with its bedaubed and bepainted countenance,
might, in its expression of solemn seriousness, have appeared infinitely ludicrous. As it was, the profound tragedy of the scene was only accented by the grotesqueness of his outlandish presentment. Without seeming to observe his silence, but fetching a profound sigh that appeared to come from the very bottom of his heart, the speaker presently resumed his address as follows: “But, though I may not relate to you all the circumstances of my dreadful fate, I may at least tell you this much, — that I and another were engaged in a political revolution in Industan, in the course of which a powerful and implacable Oriental ruler was overthrown from power. Knowing to what an extent I had incurred his resentment, I thought to escape his vengeance in this remote country. I find, however, he has discovered me; and I have already received a warning that my life is in imminent danger. My brother, who was the companion of my machinations, as he was the partaker of my rewards, is hidden in a remoter part of this country; and it is my intention not only to transmit through you a warning to him of his extreme danger and of my own miserable fate, but also to have you carry a portion of that treasure which was my reward, and which I do not choose to have fall into the hands of my enemies.
“I may, sir, be unable to convince you of my sincerity by the use of such empty words as those which I am obliged to use; but what your ears may disbelieve, your eyes may at least convince you of.”
As he concluded, he smote his hands together sharply two or three times in succession, whereupon a door near to where he stood was, as though in echo, immediately opened by a waiting attendant, who, with a silent footfall, entered the apartment. This new personage upon the scene possessed an Oriental cast of countenance, which was further enhanced by his extraordinary costume, his head being surmounted by a turban, and his figure clad in a long garment of dark embroidered silk. In one hand he bore a casket about the bigness of a hat-box, bound about with bands of steel of prodigious strength, and studded with polished brass nails. In the other he carried a small tray with a leathern bag upon it. Without betraying the slightest signs of curiosity or surprise at Griscombe’s extraordinary figure, but with a deportment of the utmost seriousness, he placed both of these objects upon the table beside our hero, and then, with a profound obeisance to the gentleman beside the fireplace, withdrew as silently and as suddenly as he had entered.
“In yonder bag,” said the gentleman, immediately resuming his colloquy, “are one hundred pieces of gold, valued at twenty dollars each. Such part of this as you find necessary, you are to expend in executing the commission with which I shall presently intrust you: the residue you are to retain as a fee for your services. This strong box you are immediately to convey to your lodgings in my cabriolet (which waits for you below at the back gate), devoting to its safety the most extraordinary care; for it contains a priceless treasure. If by nine o’clock to-morrow morning you receive no word from me, you will know that I am no longer in the world of the living, and that the vengeance that has followed so relentlessly upon my footsteps has at last overtaken me. In that case you are immediately and with all despatch to convey this box to Bordentown in the State of New Jersey, and are to deliver it to the person designated upon the address attached to the handle. He is my brother; and his name, as you will discover, is Mr. Michael Desmond. Upon the opposite side of the ferry at Paulus Hook you will find a post-chaise awaiting its passenger. This I have provided for myself in case I am able to escape the dangers which overhang me. Should I not be so fortunate as to accomplish an escape, you are to take my place in the conveyance, and to pursue your commission, stopping neither day nor night until it is accomplished. My brother I make the legatee of the greater part of that wealth (the price, if you please, of treachery and of blood) which has proved the source of my own undoing. Behold! You shall see it for yourself!”
As he spoke, our young lawyer’s extraordinary client stepped briskly to the box, applied a key to the lock, and lifted the lid. Within was a considerable mass of closely packed lamb’s-wool, which — as Griscombe, consumed by a fever of curiosity, arose to observe — the speaker deftly removed, displaying to the young lawyer’s dazzled and bewildered gaze a sight that well-nigh bereft him of what reason he had remaining after his late most incredible interview. Reposing upon a second mass of lamb’s wool, hollowed out as though to receive its precious contents, was a double handful of precious stones of inconceivable size and brilliancy, which, in the light of the candles that had been lit, shed forth a thousand dazzling sparks of infinite variety of flaming colors. It was but a glance: the next moment the lamb’s wool was replaced, the lid was clapped down again, the key turned, and Griscombe’s bedazzled sight returned once more to the objects about him.
“And now, my dear sir,” resumed his interlocutor, “whether or not you believe my story, you will, I am sure, perceive how important is the commission I intrust to your keeping, and how well I am inclined to pay you for all of your trouble. I trust, therefore, you will consider me to be lacking neither in courtesy nor in hospitality if I beg you to withdraw, and to return to your own house. So great is my threatened danger that I dare not even accompany you to my cabriolet that is awaiting you where we left it; but in lieu of myself I shall send with you an attendant who is altogether attached to my interests, and who will serve as a guard until you and your charge are safely ensconced in your lodgings.”
Thereupon he once more clapped his hands together. Again the same mysterious attendant, who had before replied to the summons, appeared in instant response, and, in obedience to elaborate directions delivered in a foreign tongue, of which the young lawyer understood not a single iota, bowed to our hero, and indicated that he was prepared to accompany him upon his return.
With this concludes the first chapter of our narrative, with only this to add, that our hero — under the escort of his singular attendant — arrived safely at home, where he hid his treasure casket under the bed, in the remotest corner of the room, until he could otherwise dispose of it.
HERE FOLLOWS THE SECOND CHAPTER
CHAPTER TWO
The Remarkable BEHAVIOR of the LAWYER’S Second CLIENT.
AS THE INGENUOUS reader may readily imagine, what little remained of that night was passed with no great ease or repose by our hero. But little slumber visited his eyelids, and that little so disturbed by vivid and diabolical visions of terror that he had better have remained awake than to have fallen into so portentous a sleep. In a succession of monstrous images he continually beheld his client distorted by the most grotesque and fantastic pangs of dissolution; as continually he was haunted by visions of the journey he was about to undertake; and such phantoms were always accompanied by corresponding dreams of the strong box of treasure.
In one of these tremendous visions he beheld himself searching in a deep bed of sliding sand for the jewels which had been lost from the overturned casket, while a dreadful form leaned out of the window of the post-chaise upon the bank above, shrieking to him to hasten or it would immediately perish.
It was from this portentous dream that he awoke to find the early winter daylight struggling through the window-shades, and to an immediate realization of the strange and inexplicable commission that awaited him.
Nor was it until in the gray of the morning he had again viewed the bag of gold and the casket of treasure, that he could feel entirely assured that what had befallen him the night before was not an hallucination, such as those that had pursued him throughout the troubled sleep from which he had just aroused himself. It appeared to him incredible that such strange occurrences could really have happened to him, and it was above an hour before he could compose his mind to accept that which had occurred.
Finding himself at the end of that time in no small degree exhausted by the several instances of extreme excitement through which he had just passed, and discovering that he was now assailed by a sharp and vehement appetite, he determined to visit an oyster-bay at the neighboring Oswego Market, where, so long as he had been able to obtain the necessary credit, he had been in th
e habit of taking an occasional meal. To this end, having extracted a piece of gold from the leathern bag, and having carefully hidden the rest in a drawer of his bureau, he sallied forth in quest of that with which to satisfy his appetite, carrying with him, for the sake of safe keeping, the treasure casket of jewels.
Having satisfied the immediate pangs of his appetite by a breakfast of unusual elaborateness, and having nearly overwhelmed the keeper of the oyster-bay with the proffer of a double eagle of gold, from which he was requested to extract payment for the entertainment he had just received, he returned home refreshed in body and in mind, with renewed courage and possessed by a keen and vehement desire to follow out to its end the adventure upon which he now found himself embarked.