The Greatest Occult & Supernatural Tales of Marjorie Bowen. Bowen Marjorie
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departure; but Dirk was in her way.
“Nay,” he said firmly. “At least show your face —— how shall I know you again? And what confidence have you in me if you will not take off your mask? I say you shall.”
She trembled between a sigh and a laugh.
“Perhaps my face is not worth gazing at,” she answered on a breath.
“I wot ye are a fair woman,” replied Dirk, who heard the consciousness of it in her alluring voice.
Still she hesitated.
“Know ye many about the Court?” she asked.
“Nay. I have not concerned myself with the Court.”
“Well, then — and since I must trust you — and like you”— her voice rose and fell —“look at me and remember me.”
She loosened her cloak, flung back the hood and quickly unfastening the mask, snatched it off. The disguise flung aside, she was revealed to the shoulders, clearly in the warm twilight.
Dirk’s first impression was, that this was beauty that swept from his mind all other beauty he had ever beheld; his second, that it was the same face he and Theirry had seen in the mirror. “Oh!” he cried. “Well?” said the lady, the hideous mask in her band.
Now she was disclosed, it was as if another presence had entered the dusky chamber, so difficult was it to associate this brilliance with the cloaked figure of a few moments since.
Certainly she was of a great beauty, smiting into breathlessness, a beauty not to be realised until beheld; Dirk would not have believed that a woman could be so fair.
If Jacobea’s hair was yellow, this lady’s locks were pale, pure glittering gold, and her eyes a deep, soft, violet hue; the throwing back of her cloak revealed her round slender throat, and the glimmer of a rich bodice.
The smile faded from her lips, and her gorgeous loveliness became grave, almost tragic. “You do not know me?” she asked.
“No,” answered Dirk; he could not tell her that he had seen her before in his devil’s mirror. “But you will recognise me again?”
Dirk laughed quietly.
“You were not made to be forgotten. Strange with such a face ye should have need of witchcraft!”
The lady replaced the mottled mask, that looked the more horrible after that glimpse of gleaming beauty, and drew her mantle over her shoulders.
“I shall come to you or send to you, sir. Think on what I have said, and on what I know.”
She was obscured again, hidden in her green cloak. Dirk proffered no question, made no comment, but preceded her down the dark passage and opened the door; she passed out; her footstep was light on the path; Dirk watched her walk rapidly down the street then closed the door and bolted it. After a pause of breathless confusion and heart-heating excitement, he ran to the back of the house and out into the garden.
It was just light enough for the huge dusky roses to be visible as they nodded on their trailing bushes; Dirk ran between them until he reached a gaunt stone statue half concealed by laurels; in front of this were flags irregularly placed; in the centre of one was an iron ring; Dirk, pulling at this, disclosed a trap door that opened at his effort, and revealed a flight of steps; he descended from the soft pure evening and the red roses into the witch’s kitchen, closing the stone above him.
The underground chamber was large and lit by lamps hanging from the roof, revealing smooth stone walls and damp floor; in one side a gaping blackness showed where a passage twisted to the outer air; on another was a huge alchemist’s fireplace; before this sat the witch, about her a quantity of glass vessels, retorts and pots of various shapes.
Either side this fireplace hung a human body, black and withered, swinging from rusted ropes and crowned with wreaths of green and purple blotched leaves.
On a table set against the wall was a brass head that glimmered in the feeble light. Dirk crossed the floor with his youthful step and touched Nathalie on the shoulder. “One came to see me,” he said breathlessly. “A marvellous lady.”
“I know,” murmured the witch. “And was it to play into thy hands?”
The air was thick and tainted with unwholesome smells; Dirk leant against the wall and stared down the chamber, his hand to his brow.
“She threatened me,” he said, “and for a moment I was afraid; for, certes, I do not wish to leave Frankfort . . . but she wished me to serve her — which I will do — for a price.” “Who is she?” blinked the witch.
“That I am come to discover,” frowned Dirk. “And who it is she spoke of — also somewhat of Jacobea of Martzburg”— he coughed, for the foul atmosphere had entered his nostrils. “Give me the globe.”
The witch handed him a ball of a dark muddy colour, which he placed on the floor, flinging himself beside it; Nathalie drew a pentagon round the globe and pronounced some words in a low tone; a slight tremor shook the ground, though it was solid earth they stood on, and the globe turned a pale, luminous, blue tint.
Dirk pushed back the damp hair from his eyes, and, resting his face in his hands, his elbows on the ground, he stared into the depths of the crystal, the colour of which brightened until it glowed a ball of azure fire.
“I see nothing,” he said angrily.
The witch repeated her incantations; she leant forward, the yellow coins glistening on her pale forehead.
Rays of light began to sparkle from the globe. “Show me something of the lady who came here today,” commanded Dirk.
They waited.
“Do ye see anything?” breathed the witch.
“Yea — very faintly.”
He gazed for a while in silence.
“I see a man,” he said at last. “The spells are wrong . . . I see nothing of the lady —” “Watch, though,” cried the witch. “What is he like?”
“I cannot see distinctly . . . he is on horseback . . . he wears armour . . . now I can see his face — he is young, dark — he has black hair —”
“Do ye know him?”
“Nay — I have never seen him before.” Dirk did not lift his eyes from the globe. “He is evidently a knight . . . he is magnificent but cold . . . ah!”
His exclamation was at the change in the ball; slowly it faded into a faint blue, then became again dark and muddy.
He flung it angrily out of the pentagon.
“What has that told me?” he cried. “What is this man?”
“Question Zerdusht,” said the witch, pointing to the brass head. “Maybe he will speak tonight.”
She flung a handful of spices on to the slow-burning fire, and a faint smoke rose, filling the chamber.
Dirk crossed to the brass head and surveyed it with eager hollow eyes.
“The dead men dance,” smiled the witch. “Certes, he will speak to-night.”
Dirk turned his wild gaze to where the corpses hung. Their shrivelled limbs twisted and jerked at the end of their chain, and the horrid lurid colour of their poisonous wreaths gleamed through the smoke and shook with the nodding of their faceless heads.
“Zerdusht, Zerdusht,” murmured Dirk. “In the name of Satan, his legions, speak to thy servant, show or tell him something of the woman who came here today on an evil errand.”
A heavy stillness fell with the ending of the words; the smoke became thick and dense, then suddenly cleared.
At that instant the lamps were extinguished and the fire fell into ashes.
“Something