{99}
HYPATIA GAY knocked timidly at the door of Count Swanoff's flat. Hers was a curious mission, to serve the envy of the long lank melancholy unwashed poet whom she loved. Will Bute was not only a poetaster but a dabbler in magic, and black jealousy of a younger man and a far finer poet gnawed at his petty heart. He had gained a subtle hypnotic influence over Hypatia, who helped him in his ceremonies, and he had now commissioned her to seek out his rival and pick up some magical link through which he might be destroyed.
The door opened, and the girl passed from the cold stone dusk of the stairs to a palace of rose and gold. The poet's rooms were austere in their elegance. A plain gold-black paper of Japan covered the walls; in the midst hung an ancient silver lamp within which glowed the deep ruby of an electric lamp. The floor was covered with black and gold of leopards' skins; on the walls hung a great crucifix in ivory and ebony. Before the blazing fire lay the poet (who had concealed his royal Celtic descent beneath the pseudonym of Swanoff) reading in a great volume bound with vellum.
He rose to greet her.
"Many days have I expected you," he exclaimed, "many days have I wept over you. I see your destiny --- how thin a {101} thread links you to that mighty Brotherhood of the Silver Star whose trembling neophyte I am --- how twisted and thick are the tentacles of the Black Octopus whom you now serve. Ah! wrench yourself away while you are yet linked with us: I would not that you sank into the Ineffable Slime. Blind and bestial are the worms of the Slime: come to me, and by the Faith of the Star, I will save you."
The girl put him by with a light laugh. "I came," she said, "but to chatter about clairvoyance --- why do you threat me with these strange and awful words?"
"Because I see that to-day may decide all for you. Will you come with me into the White Temple, while I administer the Vows? Or will you enter the Black Temple, and swear away your soul?"
"Oh really," she said, "you are too silly --- but I'll do what you like next time I come here."
"To-day your choice --- to-morrow your fate," answered the young poet.
And the conversation drifted to lighter subjects.
But as she left she managed to scratch his hand with a brooch, and this tiny blood-stain on the pin she bore back in triumph to her master; he would work a strange working therewith!
Swanoff closed his books and went to bed. The streets were deadly silent; he turned his thoughts to the Infinite Silence of the Divine Presence, and fell into a peaceful sleep. No dreams disturbed him; later than usual he awoke.
How strange! The healthy flush of his cheek had faded: the hands were white and thin and wrinkled: he was so weak {102} that he could hardly stagger to the bath. Breakfast refreshed him somewhat; but more than this the expectation of a visit from his master.
The master came. "Little brother!" he cried aloud as he entered, "you have disobeyed me. You have been meddling again with the Goetia!"
"I swear to you, master!" He did reverence to the adept.
The new comer was a dark man with a powerful clean-shaven face almost masked in a mass of jet-black hair.
"Little brother," he said, "if that be so, then the Goetia has been meddling with you."
He lifted up his head an sniffed. "I smell evil;" he said, "I smell the dark brothers of iniquity. Have you duly performed the Ritual of the Flaming Star?"
"Thrice daily, according to your word."
"Then evil has entered in a body of flesh. Who has been here?"
The young poet told him. His eyes flashed. "Aha!" he said, "now let us Work!"
The neophyte brought writing materials to his master: the quill of a young gander, snow-white; virgin vellum of a young male lamb; ink of the gall of a certain rare fish; and a mysterious Book.
The master drew a number of incomprehensible signs and letters upon the vellum.
"Sleep with this beneath the pillow," he said, "you will awake if you are attacked; and whatever it is that attacks you, kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Then instantly go into your temple and assume the shape and dignity of the god {103} Horus, send back the Thing to its sender by the might of the god that is in you! Come! I will discover unto you the words and the signs and the spells for this working of magic art."
They disappeared into the little white room lined with mirrors which Swanoff used for a temple.
Hypatia Gay, that same afternoon, took some drawings to a publisher in Bond Street. This man was bloated with disease and drink; his loose lips hung in an eternal leer; his fat eyes shed venom; his cheeks seemed ever on the point of bursting into nameless sores and ulcers.
He bought the young girl's drawings. "Not so much for their value," he explained, "as that I like to help promising young artists --- like you, my dear!
Her steely virginal eyes met his fearlessly and unsuspiciously. The beast cowered, and covered his foulness with a hideous smile of shame.
The night came, and young Swanoff went to his rest without alarm. Yet with that strange wonder that denotes those who expect the unknown and terrible, but have faith to win through.
This night he dreamt --- deliciously.
A thousand years he strayed in gardens of spice, by darling streams, beneath delightful trees, in the blue rapture of the wonderful weather. At the end of a long glade of ilex that reached up to a marble palace stood a woman, fairer than all the women of the earth. Imperceptibly they drew together --- she was in his arms. He awoke with a start. A woman {104} indeed lay in his arms and showered a rain of burning kisses on his face. She clothed him about with ecstasy; her touch waked the serpent of essential madness in him.
Then, like a flash of lightning, came his master's word to his memory --- Kill it! In the dim twilight he could see the lovely face that kissed him with lips of infinite splendour, hear the cooing words of love.
"Kill it! My God! Adonai! Adonai!" He cried aloud, and took her by the throat. Ah God! Her flesh was not the flesh of woman. It was hard as india-rubber to the touch, and his strong young fingers slipped. Also he loved her --- loved, as he had never dreamt that love could be.
But he knew now, he knew! And a great loathing mingled with his lust. Long did they struggle; at last he got the upper, and with all his weight above her drove down his fingers in her neck. She gave one gasping cry --- a cry of many devils in hell --- and died. He was alone.
He had slain the succubus, and absorbed it. Ah! With what force and fire his veins roared! Ah! How he leapt from the bed, and donned the holy robes. How he invoked the God of Vengeance, Horus the mighty, and turned loose the Avengers upon the black soul that had sought his life!
At the end he was calm and happy as a babe; he returned to bed, slept easy, and woke strong and splendid.
Night after night for ten nights this scene was acted and re-acted: always identical. On the eleventh day he received a postcard from Hypatia Gay that she was coming to see him that afternoon.
"It means that the material basis of their working is {105} exhausted," explained his master. "She wants another drop of blood. But we must put an end to this."
They went out into the city, and purchased a certain drug of which the master knew. At the very time that she was calling at the flat, they were at the boarding-house where she lodged, and secretly distributing the drug about the house. Its function was a strange one: hardly had they left the house when from a thousand quarter came a lamentable company of cats, and made the winter hideous with their cries.
"That" (chuckled the master) "will give her mind something to occupy itself with. She will do no black magic for our friend awhile!"
Indeed the link was broken; Swanoff had peace. "If she comes again," ordered the master, "I leave it to you to punish her."
A month passed by; then, unannounced, once more Hypatia Gay knocked at the flat. Her virginal eyes still smiled; her purpose was yet deadlier than before.
Swanoff fenced with her awhile. Then she began to tempt him.
"Stay!" he said, "first you must keep your promise and enter the temple!"
Strong in the trust of her black master, she agreed. The poet opened the little door, and closed it quickly after her, turning the key.
As she passed into the utter darkness that hid behind curtains of black velvet, she caught one glimpse of the presiding god. {106}
It was a skeleton that sat there, and blood stained all its bones. Below it was the evil altar, a round table supported by an ebony figure of a negro standing upon his hands. Upon the altar smouldered a sickening perfume, and the stench of the slain victims of the god defiled the air. It was a tiny room, and the girl, staggering, came against the skeleton. The bones were not clean; they were hidden by a greasy slime mingling with the blood, as though the hideous worship were about to endow it with a new body of flesh. She wrenched herself back in disgust. Then suddenly she felt it was alive! It was coming towards her! She shrieked once the blasphemy which her vile master had chosen as his mystic name; only a hollow laugh echoed back.
Then she knew all. She knew that to seek the left-hand path may lead one to the power of the blind worms of the Slime --- and she resisted. Even then she might have called to the White Brothers; but she did not. A hideous fascination seized her.
And then she felt the horror.
Something --- something against which nor clothes nor struggles were any protection --- was taking possession of her, eating its way into her ...
And its embrace was deadly cold. ... Yet the hell-clutch at her heart filled her with a fearful joy. She ran forward; she put her arms round the skeleton; she put her young lips to its bony teeth, and kissed it. Instantly, as at a signal, a drench of the waters of death washed all the human life out of her being, while a rod as of steel smote her even from the base of the spine to the brain. She had passed the gates of the abyss. Shriek after shriek of ineffable agony burst from her tortured {107} mouth; she writhed and howled in that ghastly celebration of the nuptials of the Pit.
Exhaustion took her; she fell with a heavy sob.
When she came to herself she was at home. Still that lamentable crew of cats miauled about the house. She awoke and shuddered. On the table lay two notes.
The first: "You fool! They are after me; my life is not safe. You have ruined me --- Curse you!" This from the loved master, for whom she had sacrificed her soul.
The second a polite note from the publisher, asking for more drawings. Dazed and desperate, she picked up her portfolio, and went round to his office in Bond Street.
He saw the leprous light of utter degradation in her eyes; a dull flush came to his face; he licked his lips.
{108}