Chapter XIX The Viscount and the Persian
Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him thatmysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was aPersian and that he lived in a little old-fashioned flat in the Rue deRivoli.
The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan capbent over Raoul.
"I hope, M. de Chagny," he said, "that you have not betrayed Erik'ssecret?"
"And why should I hesitate to betray that monster, sir?" Raoul rejoinedhaughtily, trying to shake off the intruder. "Is he your friend, byany chance?"
"I hope that you said nothing about Erik, sir, because Erik's secret isalso Christine Daae's and to talk about one is to talk about the other!"
"Oh, sir," said Raoul, becoming more and more impatient, "you seem toknow about many things that interest me; and yet I have no time tolisten to you!"
"Once more, M. de Chagny, where are you going so fast?"
"Can not you guess? To Christine Daae's assistance..."
"Then, sir, stay here, for Christine Daae is here!"
"With Erik?"
"With Erik."
"How do you know?"
"I was at the performance and no one in the world but Erik couldcontrive an abduction like that! ... Oh," he said, with a deep sigh, "Irecognized the monster's touch! ..."
"You know him then?"
The Persian did not reply, but heaved a fresh sigh.
"Sir," said Raoul, "I do not know what your intentions are, but can youdo anything to help me? I mean, to help Christine Daae?"
"I think so, M. de Chagny, and that is why I spoke to you."
"What can you do?"
"Try to take you to her ... and to him."
"If you can do me that service, sir, my life is yours! ... One wordmore: the commissary of police tells me that Christine Daae has beencarried off by my brother, Count Philippe."
"Oh, M. de Chagny, I don't believe a word of it."
"It's not possible, is it?"
"I don't know if it is possible or not; but there are ways and ways ofcarrying people off; and M. le Comte Philippe has never, as far as Iknow, had anything to do with witchcraft."
"Your arguments are convincing, sir, and I am a fool! ... Oh, let usmake haste! I place myself entirely in your hands! ... How should Inot believe you, when you are the only one to believe me ... when youare the only one not to smile when Erik's name is mentioned?"
And the young man impetuously seized the Persian's hands. They wereice-cold.
"Silence!" said the Persian, stopping and listening to the distantsounds of the theater. "We must not mention that name here. Let ussay 'he' and 'him;' then there will be less danger of attracting hisattention."
"Do you think he is near us?"
"It is quite possible, Sir, if he is not, at this moment, with hisvictim, IN THE HOUSE ON THE LAKE."
"Ah, so you know that house too?"
"If he is not there, he may be here, in this wall, in this floor, inthis ceiling! ... Come!"
And the Persian, asking Raoul to deaden the sound of his footsteps, ledhim down passages which Raoul had never seen before, even at the timewhen Christine used to take him for walks through that labyrinth.
"If only Darius has come!" said the Persian.
"Who is Darius?"
"Darius? My servant."
They were now in the center of a real deserted square, an immenseapartment ill-lit by a small lamp. The Persian stopped Raoul and, inthe softest of whispers, asked:
"What did you say to the commissary?"
"I said that Christine Daae's abductor was the Angel of Music, ALIASthe Opera ghost, and that the real name was ..."
"Hush! ... And did he believe you?"
"No."
"He attached no importance to what you said?"
"No."
"He took you for a bit of a madman?"
"Yes."
"So much the better!" sighed the Persian.
And they continued their road. After going up and down severalstaircases which Raoul had never seen before, the two men foundthemselves in front of a door which the Persian opened with amaster-key. The Persian and Raoul were both, of course, indress-clothes; but, whereas Raoul had a tall hat, the Persian wore theastrakhan cap which I have already mentioned. It was an infringementof the rule which insists upon the tall hat behind the scenes; but inFrance foreigners are allowed every license: the Englishman histraveling-cap, the Persian his cap of astrakhan.
"Sir," said the Persian, "your tall hat will be in your way: you woulddo well to leave it in the dressing-room."
"What dressing-room?" asked Raoul.
"Christine Daae's."
And the Persian, letting Raoul through the door which he had justopened, showed him the actress' room opposite. They were at the end ofthe passage the whole length of which Raoul had been accustomed totraverse before knocking at Christine's door.
"How well you know the Opera, sir!"
"Not so well as 'he' does!" said the Persian modestly.
And he pushed the young man into Christine's dressing-room, which wasas Raoul had left it a few minutes earlier.
Closing the door, the Persian went to a very thin partition thatseparated the dressing-room from a big lumber-room next to it. Helistened and then coughed loudly.
There was a sound of some one stirring in the lumber-room; and, a fewseconds later, a finger tapped at the door.
"Come in," said the Persian.
A man entered, also wearing an astrakhan cap and dressed in a longovercoat. He bowed and took a richly carved case from under his coat,put it on the dressing-table, bowed once again and went to the door.
"Did no one see you come in, Darius?"
"No, master."
"Let no one see you go out."
The servant glanced down the passage and swiftly disappeared.
The Persian opened the case. It contained a pair of long pistols.
"When Christine Daae was carried off, sir, I sent word to my servant tobring me these pistols. I have had them a long time and they can berelied upon."
"Do you mean to fight a duel?" asked the young man.
"It will certainly be a duel which we shall have to fight," said theother, examining the priming of his pistols. "And what a duel!"Handing one of the pistols to Raoul, he added, "In this duel, we shallbe two to one; but you must be prepared for everything, for we shall befighting the most terrible adversary that you can imagine. But youlove Christine Daae, do you not?"
"I worship the ground she stands on! But you, sir, who do not loveher, tell me why I find you ready to risk your life for her! You mustcertainly hate Erik!"
"No, sir," said the Persian sadly, "I do not hate him. If I hated him,he would long ago have ceased doing harm."
"Has he done you harm?"
"I have forgiven him the harm which he has done me."
"I do not understand you. You treat him as a monster, you speak of hiscrime, he has done you harm and I find in you the same inexplicablepity that drove me to despair when I saw it in Christine!"
The Persian did not reply. He fetched a stool and set it against thewall facing the great mirror that filled the whole of the wall-spaceopposite. Then he climbed on the stool and, with his nose to thewallpaper, seemed to be looking for something.
"Ah," he said, after a long search, "I have it!" And, raising hisfinger above his head, he pressed against a corner in the pattern ofthe paper. Then he turned round and jumped off the stool:
"In half a minute," he said, "he shall be ON HIS ROAD!" and crossingthe whole of the dressing-room he felt the great mirror.
"No, it is not yielding yet," he muttered.
"Oh, are we going out by the mirror?" asked Raoul. "Like ChristineDaae."
"So you knew that Christine Daae went out by that mirror?"
"She did so before my eyes, sir! I was hidden behind the curtain ofthe inner room and I saw her vanish not by the glass, but in the glass!"
&nb
sp; "And what did you do?"
"I thought it was an aberration of my senses, a mad dream.
"Or some new fancy of the ghost's!" chuckled the Persian. "Ah, M. deChagny," he continued, still with his hand on the mirror, "would thatwe had to do with a ghost! We could then leave our pistols in theircase ... Put down your hat, please ... there ... and now cover yourshirt-front as much as you can with your coat ... as I am doing ...Bring the lapels forward ... turn up the collar ... We must makeourselves as invisible as possible."
Bearing against the mirror, after a short silence, he said:
"It takes some time to release the counterbalance, when you press onthe spring from the inside of the room. It is different when you arebehind the wall and can act directly on the counterbalance. Then themirror turns at once and is moved with incredible rapidity."
"What counterbalance?" asked Raoul.
"Why, the counterbalance that lifts the whole of this wall on to itspivot. You surely don't expect it to move of itself, by enchantment!If you watch, you will see the mirror first rise an inch or two andthen shift an inch or two from left to right. It will then be on apivot and will swing round."
"It's not turning!" said Raoul impatiently.
"Oh, wait! You have time enough to be impatient, sir! The mechanismhas obviously become rusty, or else the spring isn't working... Unlessit is something else," added the Persian, anxiously.
"What?"
"He may simply have cut the cord of the counterbalance and blocked thewhole apparatus."
"Why should he? He does not know that we are coming this way!"
"I dare say he suspects it, for he knows that I understand the system."
"It's not turning! ... And Christine, sir, Christine?"
The Persian said coldly:
"We shall do all that it is humanly possible to do! ... But he may stopus at the first step! ... He commands the walls, the doors and thetrapdoors. In my country, he was known by a name which means the'trap-door lover.'"
"But why do these walls obey him alone? He did not build them!"
"Yes, sir, that is just what he did!"
Raoul looked at him in amazement; but the Persian made a sign to him tobe silent and pointed to the glass ... There was a sort of shiveringreflection. Their image was troubled as in a rippling sheet of waterand then all became stationary again.
"You see, sir, that it is not turning! Let us take another road!"
"To-night, there is no other!" declared the Persian, in a singularlymournful voice. "And now, look out! And be ready to fire."
He himself raised his pistol opposite the glass. Raoul imitated hismovement. With his free arm, the Persian drew the young man to hischest and, suddenly, the mirror turned, in a blinding daze ofcross-lights: it turned like one of those revolving doors which havelately been fixed to the entrances of most restaurants, it turned,carrying Raoul and the Persian with it and suddenly hurling them fromthe full light into the deepest darkness.