Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862

  CHAPTER XIV.

  NECROMANCY IN A THUNDER-STORM--A VERY IMPROPER "JOINING OF HANDS"--BELLCRAWFORD'S EYES, AND OTHER EYES--TWO PICTURES IN THE DUSSELDORF--ATHUNDER-CLAP AND A SHRIEK--THE RED WOMAN WITHOUT A MASK.

  It was perhaps four o'clock in the afternoon when the trio offortune-seekers reached the door that had been designated by theadvertisement as No. -- Prince Street; and the fiery heat that had beenpouring down during all the earlier part of the day was somewhatmoderated by heavy clouds rising in the West and skimming half the uppersky, indicating a thunder-storm rapidly approaching. Perhaps Tom Lesliethought, as he approached the door sacred to the sublime mysteries ofhumbug, of the appropriateness of thunder in the heavens and lightningplaying down on the beaten earth--provided he _should_ find themysterious woman of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard, who had succeeded ingiving to his frank and bold spirit the only shock it had ever receivedfrom the powers of the supernatural world. Perhaps he felt that forwhatever was to come--melancholy jest or terrible earnest--the burstingroar of the warring elements would be a fitting accompaniment, to lendit a little dignity in the one event and to distract the overstrainedattention in the other.

  Perhaps he was even a little theatrical in his fancies, and rememberedthe crashes of sheet-iron thunder and the blinding blaze of thegunpowder lightning, that always accompanied the shot-cylinder rain whenMacbeth was seeking the weird sisters for the second time--when thefearful incantations of "Der Freischutz" were about to be commenced--orwhen the ever-ready demon was invoked by Faust, the first printer-devil.If he had any of these fancies he was in a fair way of beingaccommodated; for casting a glance up at the heavens as they approachedthe house, he saw that the obscurity was becoming still denser; and morethan once, above the rumble of the carts and omnibuses that madeBroadway one wide earthquake of subterranean noises, he caught a far-offbooming that he knew to be the thunder of the advancing storm, alreadyplaying its fearful overture among the mountains of Pennsylvania.

  His companions were too much absorbed by the novelty of their errand,and a little expressed apprehension on the part of Bell that if the raincame on and the carriage should not be ready at the exact moment when itwas wanted, her costly summer drapery might run a chance of being wettedand disordered,--to make any close examination of the outside of thebuilding at the door of which Leslie rang; and indeed they had not thesame reason for remarking any peculiarities. Leslie saw that it wascertainly the same at which Harding and himself had stood two nightsbefore--that the tree (_his_ tree, for had he not "hugged" it?--and whoshall dare, in this proper age, to "hug" what is not his own?)--that thetree stood in the relation he remembered, to the window--and that atthat window the same white curtain was visible, though not swept back,and now covering all the sash completely. He almost thought that hecould distinguish the flag in the pavement on which he must have struckthe hardest when tumbling down from the tree, and his vivid imaginationwould not have been much surprised to see a slight dint there, such asmay be made on a tin pot or a stovepipe by the iconoclastic hammer inthe hand of an exuberant four-year-old.

  On one of the lintels of the door, as he had not noticed on the previousvisit, was a narrow strip of black japanned tin, with "Madame EliseBoutell" in small bronze letters, of that back-slope writing only madeby French painters, and which can only be met with, ordinarily, in theFrench cities or those of the adjacent German provinces. It seemsunlikely that any particular attention should have been paid to thelatter unimportant detail at that moment; but the detail was really_not_ an unimportant one. Among the half-working amusements of his idlehours in youth, Leslie had indulged in a little amateur sign-painting,and he boasted that he could distinguish one of the cities of the Unionfrom any other, by the styles of the signs alone, if he should be setdown blindfold in the commercial centre, and then allowed the use of hiseyes. In the present instance, by the use of his quick faculty ofobservation, he saw that the lettering of the sign was no Americanimitation, but really French. The deductions were that it had been donein Paris--that it had been used there--that "Madame Elise Boutell" hadused it for the same purpose there. Was not here a corroboration of thetheory of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard?

  All these observations, of course, had been made very briefly--in thelittle time necessary for Bell Crawford finally to congratulate herselfthat the ribbons of her hat would at least be sheltered by the house fora time, and for Joe Harris to remark what a dirty and tumble-downprecinct Prince Street seemed to be, altogether. By this time, the ringwas answered and the door opened by a neatly dressed negro girl, whoseemed to have none of the peculiarities of the race except its color,and of whom Leslie asked:

  "Madame Boutell? Can we see her?"

  "If Monsieur and Mesdames will have the goodness to step into thisroom," was the reply of the servant, opening the door of the parlor,"Madame Boutell will have the honor of receiving them in a few moments."

  "Aha!" said Leslie to himself, as they entered the room, the door closedand the negro-girl disappeared. "Aha! 'Monsieur' and 'Mesdames,' besidesbeing marvellously correct in her speech and polite enough for a Frenchdancing master! All this looks more and more suspicious."

  "Nothing so very terrible here," remarked Josephine Harris, at onceaddressing her attention to some excellent prints, commonly framed,hanging on the wall. "Some of these pictures are very nice, and as Icould throw away the frames, I should not much mind hooking them if Ihad a good opportunity."

  "But the piano is shockingly out of tune," remarked Bell, who hadimmediately commenced a listless kind of assault on that ill-usedindispensable of all rooms in which people are expected to wait.

  "Bell, for conscience sake leave that piano alone! You have nearlymurdered the one at home, and I do not see why you should be the enemyof the whole race!" was the complimentary reply of Josephine, whichcaused Bell, with a little pout on her lip, to leave the piano andcommence tapping the cheap bronzes on the mantel with the end of herparasol, by way of discovering whether they were metal or plaster.

  Just then there were steps in the hall, the outer door opened, and Joe,running suddenly to the window, was enabled to catch a glimpse throughthe blinds, of a gentleman and a lady passing down the steps from thedoor and walking hurriedly towards Broadway. The next moment the doorfrom the hall opened, and the negro girl, stepping within, said:

  "Madame Boutell will have the honor to receive Monsieur and Mesdames, ifthey will be so good as to ascend the stairs."

  "Now for it," said Joe, touching Leslie's arm with a little bit ofshudder, real or affected, and speaking in a tone so low that it seemeddesigned only for his ear and flattered that male person's vanityamazingly. "Now for it!--I have never been anywhere near the infernalregions before, to my knowledge, and you must take care of us!"

  "I will _try_--Miss Harris--may I not say Josephine?" was the reply ofLeslie, who, though he had said very little in that direction, kept hiseyes pretty closely on the wild female counterpart of himself, and wasreally getting on somewhat rapidly towards an entanglement.

  The apartment into which the seekers after information (or _no_information) were ushered, was reached by ascending an old-fashionedstair, through a hall not very well lighted, even in a summer afternoon;and when they entered it they found it to be one of two, divided by ared curtain which dropped to the floor and supplied the place of a door.No necromantic appliances were visible in the room; and with theexception of a table, three or four chairs and a carpet more or lessworn, it was without articles of use or ornament. Motioning the party tochairs, which only Bell accepted, the negro attendant said:

  "Will Monsieur and the ladies enter Madame's private room together, orsingly? Madame does not often receive more than one at once, but will doso for this distinguished company, if they wish?"

  "Ahem!" said Leslie, involuntarily pulling up his collar at the words"distinguished company," while "Good gracious--how did they know that_we_ were coming?" was the exclamation of Joe, to Bell, _sotto voce_.

  "Oh, let us all go in t
ogether," said Bell, who probably had lesssuspicion of a secret that could possibly be awkward of disclosure, inher own breast, than either of her companions.

  "No, I think not," said Joe. "You may have nothing to conceal, Bell, butI have--lots of things; and though I may be willing to have the Frenchwoman drain me dry, like a pump, I do not know that I shall offer _you_the same privilege."

  "No, on the whole, decidedly not," said Leslie. "Of course, ladies,there is really nothing for the most timid to fear; and even if therewere, the two others will be in the room immediately adjoining.Decidedly, if you are both willing, each had better tempt fate alone."

  "And who will go in first, then?" asked Bell.

  "Humph!" said Joe, "there _is_ a grave question. The decrees of fatemust not be tampered with, and the wrong one going in first might sendthose 'stars' on which the witch depends, into most alarming collision."

  "Easily arranged," said Leslie, drawing a handful of coin from hispocket, handing one of the pieces to each of the girls, and retainingone himself. "As fate is the deity to be consulted, let fate take careof her own. The one who happens to hold the piece of oldest date shalltake the first chance, and the others will follow according to the samerule. I have settled more than one important question of my life in thismanner, and I have an idea that they have been settled quite assatisfactorily as they could have been by any exercise of judgment."

  "Eighteen hundred and fifty-two," said Bell, looking at the date on hercoin. "Eighteen hundred and fifty-seven," said Joe, paying the sameattention to the one she held. And "Eighteen hundred and sixty-one--onlylast year!" said Leslie, jingling the coins in his hand and thendropping them back into his pocket,--from which (_par parenthese_) theywere so soon and so effectually to disappear, with all others of theirkind, in the turning of exchanges against us and the general derangementof the currency of the country.

  "You are first, Bell, you see!" said Joe, "and I hope you will be ableto take the fiery edge off the teeth of the dragon before I get in tohim."

  "And _I_ am the last, you perceive!" said Leslie. "The last, as I alwayshave been where women were concerned--too late, and of courseunsuccessful."

  There may have been no positive reason for the slight flush whichcrossed the face of Josephine Harris at that moment, or for theconscious look of pleasure that danced for an instant in her eyes; andyet there may have been a thought of true happiness at the assurancewhich the last words of Leslie conveyed, that he was an unmarried manand had been, so far, near enough heart-whole for all practicalpurposes. If the latter should even have been true, she need not haveflushed a second time at recognizing the feeling in herself; for mostcertainly those apparently light words of Tom Leslie had been, so tospeak, shot at her, with a determined intention of feeling ground to beafterwards trodden.

  "Madame is waiting your pleasure," said the negro girl, who had remainedstanding near the curtain all this while, but too far distant to catchmany of the words passing between the three visitors, which had all beenuttered in a low tone.

  "Ah, yes, we have kept her waiting too long, perhaps," said Leslie, "andwho knows but the fates may be the more unkind to us for the neglect oftheir priestess." He was really not very well at his ease, but somewhatanxious to appear so, as all very bashful people can fully understand,when they remember the efforts they have sometimes made to appear themost impudent men in creation. Tom Leslie was not in the slightestdegree bashful, and so the comparison fails in that regard; but he wasmore than a little nervous at the certainty which he felt of once moremeeting the "red woman," and for that reason he wished to seem the manwith no nerves whatever.

  "It is my turn--I will go in," said Bell Crawford, rising from her chairand following the negro attendant within the curtain, which only parteda little to admit her and then swept down again to the floor, giving noglimpse to the two outsiders of what might be within.

  The sky had now grown perceptibly darker, though it was still some hoursto night; and at the moment when Bell Crawford entered the inner room ofthe sorceress the gathering thunder-storm burst in fury. The thunder wasnot as yet peculiarly heavy, and the flashes of lightning had often beensurpassed in vividness; but the rain poured down in torrents and thegust of wind, which swept through the streets set windows rattling anddoors and shutters banging at a rate which promised work for thecarpenters. The two windows of the room looked out upon the street,though through closed blinds; and whether intentionally orinadvertently, the two in waiting drew two chairs to one of the windows,very near together, and sat there, watching the dashing rain andlistening to the storm. Had there been any possibility of hearing thewords spoken in the adjoining room, that possibility would now have beenentirely destroyed by the noise of the storm; and whatever of curiosityeither may have felt for the result of Bell's adventure, was renderedinefficient for the time. Meanwhile, something else was working of quiteas much consequence.

  Chances and accidents are very curious things; and those who have nobelief in a Supreme Being who brings about great results by apparentlyinsignificant agencies, must have a very difficult time of it, inreconciling the incongruous and the inadequate. Holmes, the merriest andwisest of social philosophers (when he does not run mad on thehuman-snake theory, as he has done in "Elsie Venner") very prettilyillustrates the opposite, as to how the agency which moves the greatmay also perform the little, in

  "The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, And that young earthquake t'other day was great on shaking props;"

  but the opposite may be illustrated more easily, and is certainlyillustrated much oftener. Not only may

  "A broken girth decide a nation's fate,"

  in battle; but a gnawing insignificant rat may sink a ship, and onecontemptible traitor be able to disseminate poison enough to destroy arepublic; while the question of whether Bobby does or does not take histop with him to school to-day, may decide whether he does or does notwander off to the neighboring pond to be drowned; and Smith's being seento step into a billiard-room may decide the question of credit againsthim in the Bank discount-committee, and send him to the commercial wall,a bankrupt. That glance of unnecessary and unladylike scorn which LadyFlora yesterday cast upon a beggar-woman who accidently brushed againsther costly robes on Broadway, may have lost her a rich husband, whowould otherwise have been deceived until after marriage, as to her realcharacter; and the involuntary act of courtesy of John Hawkins, stoopingdown to pick up the dropped umbrella of a common woman with a baby andtwo bundles, in a passenger-car, may make him a friend for life, worthmore than all he has won by twenty-five years of hard-working industryand honesty.

  In this point of view there are no "little things;" and probably he isbest prepared for all the exigencies of coming life, who is ready to bethe least surprised at finding a dwarfed shrub growing up from an acorn,and a mighty tree springing from the proverbial "grain of mustard seed."

  Not to be prolix on this subject--let us remember one capitalillustration--that of the clown and his two pieces of fireworks. Nomatter in what pantomime the scene occurs, as it may do for any. Theclown approaches the door of a dealer in fireworks, finds no one onduty in the shop, enters, and comes out laden with pyrotechnic spoils.He takes a small rocket, fires it, and is knocked down, frightened andstunned by the unexpectedly-heavy explosion. But he recovers directly,and determines to try the experiment over again. There is one immenserocket among the collection he has brought out--one almost as long ashimself and apparently capable of holding half a barrel of explosivematerial. He shakes his head knowingly to the audience, indicative ofthe fact that _this_ is something immense and that he is going to bevery careful about it. He sticks it up in the very middle of the stage,secures a light at the end of a long pole, and touches it off with greatfear and trembling. The explosion which follows is exactly that of oneChinese fire-cracker; and the comically disappointed face which theclown turns to the audience is precisely the same that each individualof that audience is continually turning to another
audience surroundinghim, when the great and small rockets of his daily life go off with suchdisproportionate effect.

  Perhaps it was chance that not only produced the previous circumstancesof that day, but so ordered that Bell Crawford should be the first tovacate the outer room, leaving that extraordinary couple alone together.Perhaps it was chance that led them to take seats beside each other atthe window, when they might so easily have found room to sit with somedistance between them. Perhaps it was chance that made the lightningflash in long lines of blinding light across the sky, and sent thethunder booming and crashing above the roofs of the houses, producingthat indefinable feeling that needed companionship--that "huddlingtogether" which even the terrible beasts of the East Indian jungles showin the midst of the fearful tornadoes of that region. Perhaps it waschance that, after a moment or two of silence, induced Tom Leslie,without well knowing why he did it, to lay his open palm on his knee,and to look for a moment with a glance of inquiry, full in the eyes ofthe young girl who sat at his right, as if to say: "There is my openhand--we have known each other but a little while--dare you lay _your_hand in it?" Perhaps it was chance that made the young girl return thesteady glance--then drop her eyes with so sad a look that tears mighteasily have been trembling under the long lashes,--color a little oncheek and brow, as if some tint of the sunrise flush had for a momentrested upon her face--then slowly reach over her right hand and let itdrop and nestle into the one ready to receive it. Perhaps all thesethings were chance: well, let them be so set down--such "chances" areworth something in life, to those who know how to embrace them!

  What have we here? Two persons who had spoken to each other for thefirst time, only a few hours before, and who had since held marvellouslylittle conversation, now sitting hand in hand, their soft palms pressedclose together, and every pulse of the mental and physical natures ofboth thrilling at the touch! Exceedingly improper!--exceedinglyhurried!--exceedingly indelicate! Modesty, where were you about thistime? If we have gone so fast already, how fast may we go by-and-bye?Alas, they are living people whom we have before us--not cherubim andseraphim; and they do as they please, and act very humanly, in spite ofevery care we can take of their morals. They have not said one word oflove to each other, it is true; but the mischief seems to have beendone. Nothing may have been said, in the way of a promise of marriage,capable of being taken hold of by the keenest lawyer who pleads in theBrown-Stone building; but we are not sure that ever tongue spoke to ear,or ever lip kissed back to lip, so true and enduring a betrothal as hassometimes been signed in the meeting of two palms, when not a word hadbeen spoken and when neither of the pair had one rational thought of thefuture.

  Suddenly and without warning the curtain between the two rooms moved.How quickly those two hands drew apart from each other, as if some actof guilt had been doing! If any additional proof was wanting, ofsomething clandestine (and of course improper!) between the parties,here it was certainly supplied. People never attempt to deceive, whohave not been playing tricks. Well-regulated and candid people, who doeverything by rule, never start and blush at any awkward _contretemps_,never have any concealments, but tell everything to the outer world.Privacy is a crime--all sly people are reprobates. Wicked Tom anderring Joe!--what a gulf of perdition they were sinking into withoutknowing it!

  The curtain not only moved but was drawn aside, and out of it steppedBell Crawford. She walked slowly and deliberately, like one in deepthought, and without a word crossed the room towards the point where hertwo friends were sitting. Something in her face brought them both totheir feet. What was that something? She had been absent from them forperhaps ten minutes--certainly not more than a quarter of an hour; andyet change enough had passed over her, to have marked the passage of tentwelve-months. The face looked older, perhaps sadder, more like that ofher brother, and yet less querulous, more womanly, better and moreloveable. Something seemed to have stirred the depths of her nature, ofwhich only the surface had been before exposed to view. The revelationwas better than the index. She was capable of generous things at thatmoment, of which she had been utterly incapable the hour before. It wasprobable that she could never again dash all over town in the search fora yard of ribbon of a particular color: her next search was likely to bea much more serious one.

  The first glance at her face, and the marvellous change there exhibited,wrought in so short a time, not only puzzled but alarmed JosephineHarris. She could not see where and in what feature lay the change, anymore than she could realize what could have been powerful enough toproduce it. Tom Leslie may have been quite as much alarmed; but hisolder years and wider experience, conjoined with the feelings with whichhe had come to that house, made it impossible that he should be so muchpuzzled. He saw at once that the marked change was in the _eyes_. Intheir depths (he had before remarked them, that day, as indicating anature a little weak, purposeless and not prone to self-examination)--intheir depths, clear enough now, there lay a dark, sombre, but notunpleasing shadow, such as only shows itself in eyes that have beenturned _inward_. We usually say of a man whose eyes show the sameexpression: "That man has studied much," or, "he has suffered much," or,"he is a _spiritualist_." By the latter expression, we mean that helooks more or less beneath the surface of events that meet him in theworld--that he is more or less a student of the spiritual in mentality,and of the supernatural in cause and effect. Such eyes do not stare,they merely gaze. When they look at you, they look at something elsethrough you and behind you, of which you may or may not be a part.

  Let it be said here, the occasion being a most inviting one for thisspecies of digression,--that the painter who can succeed in transferringto canvas that expression of _seeing more than is presented to thephysical eye_, has achieved a triumph over great difficulties. Frequentvisitors to the old Dusseldorf Gallery, now so sadly disrupted and itstreasures scattered through twenty private galleries where they can onlybe visible to the eyes of a favored few,--will remember two instances,perhaps by the same painter, of the eye being thus made to reveal theinner thought and a life beyond that passing at the moment. The firstand most notable is in the "Charles the Second fleeing from the Battleof Worcester." The king and two nobles are in the immediate foreground,in flight, while far away the sun is going down in a red glare behindthe smoke of battle, the lurid flames of the burning town, and the royalstandard just fluttering down from the battlements of a castle lost bythe royal arms at the very close of Cromwell's "crowning mercy." Throughthe smoke of the middle distance can be dimly seen dusky forms inflight, or in the last hopeless conflict. Each of the nobles at the sideof the fugitive king is heavily armed, with sword in hand, mounted onheavy, galloping horses, going at high speed; and each is looking outanxiously, with head turned aside as he flies, for any danger which maymenace--not himself, but the sovereign. Charles Stuart, riding betweenthem, is mounted upon a dark, high-stepping, pure-blooded English horse.He wears the peaked hat of the time, and his long hair--that whichafterward became so notorious in the masks and orgies of Whitehall, andin the prosecution of his amours in the purlieus of the capital--floatsout in wild dishevelment from his shoulders. He is dressed in the darkvelvet short cloak, and broad, pointed collar peculiar to pictures ofhimself and his unfortunate father; he shows no weapon, and is leaningungracefully forward, as if outstripping the hard-trotting speed of hishorse. But the true interest of this figure, and of the whole picture,is concentrated in the eyes. Those sad, dark eyes, steady and immovablein their fixed gaze, reveal whole pages of history and whole years ofsuffering. The fugitive king is not thinking of his flight, of anydangers that may beset him, of the companions at his side, or even ofwhere he shall lay his perilled head in the night that is coming. Thoseeyes have shut away the physical and the real, and through the mists ofthe future they are trying to read the great question of _fate_!Worcester is lost, and with it a kingdom: is he to be henceforth acrownless king and a hunted fugitive, or has the future itscompensations? This is what the fixed and glassy eyes are saying toevery beholder, an
d there is not one who does not answer the questionwith a mental response forced by that mute appeal of suffering thought:"The king shall have his own again!"

  The second picture lately in the same collection, is much smaller, andcommands less attention; but it tells another story of the same greatstruggle between King and Parliament, through the agency of the samefeature. A wounded cavalier, accompanied by one of his retainers, alsowounded, is being forced along on foot, evidently to imprisonment, byone of Cromwell's Ironsides and a long-faced, high-hatted Puritancavalry-man, both on horseback, and a third on foot, with musquetoon onshoulder. The cavalier's garments are red and blood-stained, and thereis a bloody handkerchief binding his brow, and telling how, when hishouse was surprised and his dependants slaughtered, he himself foughttill he was struck down, bound and overpowered, still hurling defianceat his enemies and their cause, until his anger and disdain grew to theterrible height of silence and he said no more. He strides sullenlyalong, looking neither to the right nor the left; and the triumphantcaptors behind him know nothing of the story that is told in his face.The eyes fixed and steady in the shadow of the bloody bandage, tellnothing of the pain of his wound or the tension of the cords which arebinding his crossed wrists. In their intense depth, which really seemsto convey the impression of looking through forty feet of the still butdangerous waters of Lake George and seeing the glimmering of the goldensand beneath,--we read of a burned house and an outraged family, and wesee a prophecy written there, that if his mounted guards could read,they would set spurs and flee away like the wind--a calm, silent, butirrevocable prophecy: "I can bear all this, for my time is coming! Not aman of all these will live, not a roof-tree that shelters them but willbe in ashes, when I take my revenge!" Not a gazer but knows, throughthose marvellous eyes alone, that the day is coming when he _will_ havehis revenge, and that the subject of pity is the victorious Roundheadinstead of the wounded and captive cavalier!

  Not all this, of course, was expressed in the eyes of Bell Crawford asshe stood before her two companions under the circumstances justdetailed; but it scarcely needed a second glance to tell the keen man ofthe world that the eyes and the brain beneath them had both been taughtsomething before unknown. He thought what might possibly have been theexpression of his own eyes, on a night so many times before alluded to,could he but have seen them as did others; and if he had before held onelingering doubt of the personality of the woman whose presence she hadjust quitted, that doubt would have remained no longer. It _was_ the"red woman," beyond a question. For just one moment another thoughtcrossed his mind, founded upon that "union of hands" so latelyconsummated. Should he permit _her_ to be subjected to the sameinfluences? And yet, why not? The good within her could not be injured,either by sorcery or super-knowledge--either by the assumption or thepossession on the part of the seeress, of information beyond that ofordinary mortality and altogether out of its pale. He _would_ permit herto undergo the same influences, even as in a few moments he would submitto them himself.

  Josephine Harris, in the time consumed by all these reflections runningthrough the mind of Leslie, had not yet recovered from her surprise atthe altered expression on the face of her friend--an expression, oddlyenough, that pleased her better than any she had ever before observedthere, and yet frightened her correspondingly.

  "Dear Bell," she said, anxiously, and using a word of endearment thathad been very rare between them, spite of their extreme intimacy.--"Whathas happened? What have you seen? Are you sick? Your eyes frightenme--they seem so sad and earnest!"

  "Do they?" said Bell, forcing a smile that was really sad enough, butbetter became her face than many expressions that had before passed overit. "Well, Josey, to tell you the truth, I have seen some strangethings, of which I will tell you at another time; and I have beenthinking very deeply. Nothing more."

  "You have seen nothing frightful--dreadful--terrible?" the young girlasked, with an unmistakable expression of anxiety upon her face.

  "Nothing terrible, though something very strange," was the reply ofBell. "Nothing that you need fear."

  "Oh, _I_ am not afraid!" answered Joe, with an assumption of braverythat she probably felt to be a sham all the while. "I believe it is myturn now. Dear me, how heavy that thunder is! Try and amuse yourselves,good people, while I 'follow in the footsteps of my illustriouspredecessor'!" and with an affectation of gaiety that was a littletransparent, she obeyed the summons of the black girl who at that momentmade her appearance again outside the curtain, and followed her within.

  Bell Crawford dropped into one of the chairs that stood by the window,and leaned her head upon her hand, in an attitude of deep thought.Leslie did not attempt to speak to her at that moment, either aware thatsuch a course could only be painful to her, or too much absorbed in theremembrance of the other who had just passed within the curtain, to wishto do so. He walked the floor, from one side to the other of the room,the sound of his heel falling somewhat heavily even on the carpetedfloor, and his head thrown forward in such a position that when he threwhis glance on a level with his line of vision it came out from under hisbent brows. The rain seemed to beat heavier and heavier outside, anddashed against the windows with such force as to threaten to beat themin; and successive discharges of thunder, accompanied with constantflashes of fierce lightning, crashed and rumbled among the house-topsand seemed to be at times actually booming through the room, immediatelyover their heads.

  In this way some fifteen minutes passed, seeming almost so many hours tothe young man, whatever they may have appeared to the young girl who satby the window, so absorbed by her own thoughts that she scarcely heardthe muttering thunder or saw the blinding flashes of the lightning.

  Suddenly there was a louder and fiercer crash of thunder than any thathad preceded it--a crash of that peculiar sharpness indicating that itmust have struck the very house in which they heard it; and thisaccompanied by one of those terribly intense flashes of lightning whichseemed to sear the eyeballs and play in blue flame through the air ofthe room,--then followed by a heavy dull rumbling shock and boom likethat of a thousand pieces of artillery fired at once, rocking thebuilding to its foundation and threatening to send it tumbling in ruinson their heads. Tom Leslie involuntarily put his hands to his eyes, toshut out the flash, and Bell Crawford, at last startled, sprung from herchair; but both were worse startled, the very second after, by a long,loud, piercing shriek, in the voice of Josephine Harris, that burst fromthe inner room and seemed like some cry extorted by mortal pain orunendurable terror.

  Both rushed towards the curtain, at once, but Leslie in advance--bothwith the impression that some dreadful catastrophe connected with thelightning must have occurred. But just as Leslie laid his hand upon thecurtain to draw it aside, it was dashed open from within, and JosephineHarris literally flung herself through it, still shrieking and in thatdeadly mortal terror which threatens the reason. She seemed about tofall, and Tom Leslie stretched out his arms to receive her. She halffell into them, then rolled, nearer than described any other motion,into those of Bell Crawford; and almost before Leslie could quiterealize what had occurred, she lay with her head in Bell's lap, theextremity of her terror over, uttering no word, but sobbing and moaninglike a little child that had been too severely dealt with and brokendown under the blow.

  Tom Leslie's hand, it has been said, was on the curtain, to remove it.He released it for the instant, to look after the welfare of thefrightened girl; but when he saw her lying in Bell's lap another feelingbecame paramount even to his anxiety for her safety, and he grasped thecurtain again and dashed through into the inner room.

  As he had expected, the red woman of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard stoodbefore him, presenting the same magnificent outline of face and the sameghastly redness of complexion that she had shown at such a distance oftime and place. In her hand was a white wand, glittering like silver,with some bright and flashing colorless stone at the end. Her dress, ashe then remembered, had been red when he saw her in Paris, and no reliefto her
ghastly color had been shown, except in the mass of dark hairsweeping down her shoulders. Now her tall and stately form was wrappedin black, against which her cloud of dark hair was unnoticed. Leslie hadnot observed, at any time during the absence of either of the two girls,any odor of smoke or any appearance of it creeping out from the curtaininto the room; but now, as he looked, he saw white wreaths of vaporcircling near the ceiling and fading away there; and he realized atonce, with the memory of the past in mind, what had been the form inwhich the images were presented, producing so startling an effect onboth.

  At the moment when he entered, the black girl was just disappearingthrough what appeared to be a small door opening out of the room uponthe landing of the stairs, and ordinarily concealed by the sweepingdrapery of dark cloth that was looped around the entire apartment.Whether the attendant was carrying away any of the properties that mighthave been used in the late jugglery, he had, of course, no means ofjudging. The sorceress herself, at the moment when he broke in upon her,was apparently advancing from the little table at which she had beenstanding, partially within the sweep of the hangings, towards thedividing curtain. At sight of the intruder she stopped suddenly and drewher tall form to its full height, while such a flash of anger appearedto dart from her keen eyes as would have produced a sensible effect onany man less used to varying sensations than the cosmopolitanjournalist.

  "What do you want?" she asked, and the words came from her lips with thesame short hissing tone that he so well remembered, creating theimpression that there must be a serpent hidden somewhere in the throatand hissing through what would otherwise be the voice.

  "What sorcery have you practised upon that poor girl, to drive her intothis state of distraction, red fiend?" was the answering question, boldenough in seeming, though Tom Leslie, asked in regard to the matterto-day, would undoubtedly acknowledge that he had felt far less tremorwhen under the heaviest play of the Russian cannon at Inkermann, thanwhen throwing this sharp taunt into the teeth of the sorceress.

  "Nothing but what _you_ have seen and endured!" was the reply, made inthe same tone as before. "I have shown them the truth, and the truth isterrible. It is murder and ruin in their own households--it is battleand death around those they love--it is desolation and destruction tothe land! Go!--those who cannot witness my power without blenching,should never seek me; and _you_ blench like those sick girls--I haveseen you blench before?"

  "Seen _me_?" echoed Leslie.

  "Seen _you_!" was the fierce reply of the sorceress. "Fool! do you thinkI cannot penetrate that thin disguise--that old man's hair and thosefalse wrinkles? You were younger-looking, eighteen months since, inanother land where the eagle screams less but tears its enemies moredeeply with its talons!"

  "I _was_," answered Leslie, carried beyond himself. "I remember the Ruela Reynie Ogniard, and I acknowledge your fearful power, though I knownot if it comes from heaven or hell! But tell me--who are _you_, somagnificently beautiful, and yet so--so--" and here (a rare thing forhim,) the voice of Tom Leslie faltered.

  "So horribly hideous, you would say," broke in the sorceress. "Stay! youhave said one word that touches the woman within me. You have recognizedmy beauty as well as my terror. Look for one instant at what no mortaleye has seen for years or may ever see again! Look!"

  Tom Leslie started, nay, staggered--for no other word can express themotion--back towards the door, infinitely more surprised than he hadbeen on the night of his first adventure with the sorceress. She heldsomething in her hand, but that could only be seen afterwards: for themoment his eyes could only behold that marvellous face. If the Sons ofGod when they intermarried with the beautiful daughters of clay, leftany descendants behind them, certainly that face must have belonged toone of the number. No longer ghastly red, but almost marble white, withthe hue of health yet mantling beneath the wondrous transparent skin,and every line and curve of beauty such as would make the sculptor drophis chisel in despair--with a lip that might have belonged to Juno and abrow that should have been set beneath the helmet of Athena--with theglorious dark eye fringed with long sweeping lashes and the wealth ofthe dark brown hair swept back in masses of rippled and tangled shadowthat caught and lost the eye continually,--what a perfect vision ofhigh-born beauty was that face, the patent of nobility coming directfrom heaven!

  And what was that which she held in her hand, and the removal of whichhad produced so wonderful a transformation? One of those masks of darkred golden wire, so fine as to be almost impalpable, and wrought byfingers of such cunning skill that while it concealed the natural skinof the face, every lineament and even every sweep and dimple was copied,as if the moulder had been working in wax--the eye looking through asnaturally as in the ordinary face, and even the very play of the lipspermitted. That strange red light which had seemed to permeate the wholeface and affect even the eyes, had merely been the red metallic glitterof the gold, leaving little work for the imagination to complete apicture fascinating as unnatural.

  "Great God!--can such beauty be real?" broke out Leslie, when he hadgazed for one instant on the splendid vision before him. "Matchless,peerless, glorious woman! Let me come nearer! Let me look longer onGod's master-work, if I even die at the sight!"

  Here was the faithful lover of Josephine Harris half an hourbefore,--and in what a situation! Oh man, man, what an eye formiscellaneous beauty is that with which your sex is gifted! All Mormonsat heart, it is to be feared, however a more self-denying canon may beobserved perforce! It is not certain that Tom Leslie would have run awaywith his new divinity, had the chance been offered at that moment; andit is not certain that he would _not_ have done so. Very fortunately,the opportunity was wanting. Very fortunately, too, the storm had notyet ceased altogether, and the two ladies in the other room were likelyto be too busy in restoring and being restored, to hear very clearlywhat was going on within.

  "Back!" said the sharp voice of the sorceress, at the impassioned toneof the last words and that clasping of the hands which told that thesubject might be kneeling the next moment. "Back! No nearer, on yourlife! I have not the power of life and death, but I may have the powerof happiness and misery. Go!--or wish that you had done so, till thevery day you die!"

  Her arm was stretched out with a queenly gesture, at once of warning andcommand. Tom Leslie obeyed, with such an effort as one sometimes makesin a forced arousing from sleep. He took one more glance at themotionless face and form, then dashed through the curtain and let itfall behind him. Joe Harris had partially recovered from her excitement,and sat beside Bell, with her face on the latter's shoulder. She rousedherself and even attempted a laugh with some success, when the voice ofLeslie was heard; and if for one instant the allegiance of the young manhad wavered in the presence of the unnatural and the overwhelming, therewas something in that bright, clear, good face, only temporarilyshadowed by her late excitement, calculated to restore him at once tothought and to truth.

  With the heavy crash of thunder which had accompanied if it had notcaused the fright of the young girl, the storm seemed to have culminatedand spent itself; and by this time the rain had nearly ceased. Not aword passed between the three as to what had occurred to either--anyconversation on that subject was naturally reserved for another placeand a later hour. The black girl came out again from behind the curtainand received with a "Thank you, Monsieur!" and a curtsey the half eaglewhich dropped into her hand. Leslie left the ladies alone for a moment,ran down to the door and found a carriage; and in a few moments, withoutfurther adventure, the three were on their way up-town, the journalistto return again to his evening avocations, after accompanying the two,whose disordered nerves he scarcely yet dared trust alone, to theirplace of destination.

  If during that ride the hand of Josephine Harris, a little hot andfeverish from late excitement, accidentally fell again into his own andrested there as if it rather liked the position--whose business was it,except their own?