Tales of the supernatural: Six romantic stories

by James Platt

THE EVIL EYE.

Our story opens upon a gloomy function; the burning of a gang of wizards and witches.

The bells were ringing, but it was a muffled peal, and the hammers were subdued that wrought the scaffolding in the market place. The steps of the citizens were as those that seek pleasure or plunder by night, and the very soldier trailed a pike most unsoldierly silent. A stranger, who, from the singularity of his appearance, would have attracted notice on any other occasion, to-day threaded unchallenged this German town.

Tall he was, worn down to the bone, gaunt and prematurely grey, hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed. His dress might be described, with no great stretch of language, as little but nakedness visible. But it was sweet with the scent of the sea, and the roll of the sea was in his long legs, as he wound his way to the central square. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. Arrived at his destination he took no heed of the ominous carpenters, nor of the wood-work to which they were putting the finishing touch. He walked straight—and as if by instinct rather than by eye—into a certain tavern of those that debouched upon that place. He might have been supposed to be dumb as well as blind, since he merely made a pantomime expressive of hunger as he sank into one of the seats. The landlord looked with doubt at his visible assets. A sad thing of the nature of a smile flickered upon the burnt and blistered visage of the sailor. He evolved a coin from some miraculous hiding-place in the cobweb that was his apology for raiment. The landlord bit it, rang it, and bit it again. Ultimately he appeared satisfied, and placed food before his customer. The speed with which it vanished would have justified an observer in antedating considerably the stranger's previous meal. Leaving a clean plate he threw himself back in his chair and steadily regarded the landlord.

Then he asked, not without emotion,

"Don't you know me, old comrade?"

The landlord started as if shot.

"By all the saints and saintesses! Marquard!"

"Aye, Marquard it is; but not the Marquard you knew of old. It was an evil hour I ran away to sea."

"But why have you not returned these years?"

"Returned! He asks me why I did not return! I that—before I had been long enough aboard to be on good terms with my inner man—was captured by the Algerine! I that have been chained to an oar in the galley of Barbarossa every day of these years of which you speak! But pay no heed to what I say. There is news for which I burn. You that have lived humdrum can tell me of her, for whose coquetries I lost patience and exiled myself."

"She lives," murmured the landlord, in a half-hearted way, and he looked upon the floor.

"She lives! And what of my rival that I thought she preferred to me?"

"He lives, if you mean the Hungarian, whose name we could never pronounce, and whom we used to call Teremtette from his favourite oath."

"Come, tell more about them both."

The landlord cast a troubled eye upon him, and again looked down. He spoke with distinct embarrassment.

"Prepare yourself for the worst, my friend. Remember that he of whom we speak was always a hobnobber with sorcerers, and a sorcerer suspect. After your departure he became a sorcerer confessed."

"And she, man! What of her?"

"Alas! She followed wherever he led, though the devil's shadow was all his light. She lived with him for a time after you abandoned the field to him."

"I knew it! In my dreams they were husband and wife, the while I hugged a bare board to my aching heart."

"Husband and wife! They were never that, save at some witches' sabbath, mated by priests unfrocked and anathematised, but not in the sight of gods or men."

"Then she is free, and I shall steal her from him yet. I will marry her, but I will kill him first."

"You know not what you say. He is swollen in power until he is acknowledged the master magician of all Germany. It is whispered that he made a pact with Satan, and in pledge thereof exchanged one of his eyes for an eye of the fiend's. It is known that he walks abroad with one eye shut until he wishes to perform some evil. Then he lifts the eyelid and shoots forth a spear of light from that eye which is not his own. And it blasts whereever it falls. For this reason we call him the Evil Eye."

"His backbone shall be limp for me, his front abased, his star is set, his grave is dug, his flesh already rots! I will bury him in a church that he may hug false hopes of salvation, and then I will set my feet on his gravestone when I stand with her before the priest. He shall shriek curses from his coffin while I knit her life to mine, until the scandalised sacred earth shall spit him forth to those that lie in wait."

"Unhappy man, you are still dreaming of the girl you left behind! Do you not realise that, now years have rolled over her, she is a mother witch? Nay, there is worse that I had hoped to spare you. Did you not notice the stakes erected outside in the market place? To-day a host of women, and not a few evil men, are to wipe out their crimes with the last payment. At this very moment the sad procession is entering the square. Do you recognise no prisoner among them?"

He threw open the door. It was even as he said. The sailor sprang to his feet and scanned the accused.

"I do not see him there!"

"Not he, he flies too high for judge or jury, the devil's true knight, hell sublimate! But look again. Do you not recognise one of the women?"

With a terrible foreboding Marquard strained his eyes, but saw no face that corresponded to his memories. They were, without exception, abominable hags that were to suffer. But one of them had at once recognised him. Recognised him, in spite of the awful change wrought by his captivity. The foulest beldame of them all stretched her skinny arms to him. Her cracked voice called his name.

"Marquard!"

An icy hand gripped the galley-slave's heart-strings. In that second he lived all the years since last he had seen her. He saw (in his mind's eye) golden hair shade to grey, skin become parchment, roses and lilies scatter in dust. He recognised her, and he leaped forward to her like an arrow from a bow. The spectators parted in amaze, to right and left. Guards and executioners fell back from his foot and hand. He caught the outstretched hands of the witch in his. He devoured her with his looks, and she him. He was as one in a dream. He scarcely felt her press something round into one of his palms. She whispered so that he alone heard her:—

"Marquard! It is a charm I am giving you that has cost me dear. It will protect you from all evil, and especially from him. As you love me, never part with it while you live. I dare not wish you well lest my prayer should blast you. Good-bye, and think sometimes kindly of me."

He would have retained her, but she drew her fingers away, leaving with him that globular thing to which he paid no attention. She kissed him with her eyes. He tried to speak, but words were choked in sobs. And now the soldiers, both horse and foot, bore down upon him. A cry of rescue was raised by some of the crowd that were interested in the prisoners. Others shouted them down, and shook their fists in Marquard's face. The wildest confusion reigned. His rags were torn from his back. A hundred blades were thrust into his flesh. Those that had taken his part pulled him one way, the more law-abiding citizens pulled him another. His head swam, he lost his footing, he fell, and was trampled alike by friend and foe, in the pitched battle that was fought over his body. He lost consciousness, and knew no more.

When he recovered his painful identity, it was some time before he could remember what had passed. He was sick, as he fancied, from the rollings of the galley, and sore from the laying-on of the taskmaster's whip. It was the possession of a certain ball, which he still clutched in his palm, which, after he had stared at it for a while, led him back to truth. When, by degrees, he had recovered his memory, he tried to make out of what substance it was formed, but without arriving at any conclusion, he carefully stowed it away. He was most puzzled by the fact that he was in a room. It was dark, so that a considerable time must have elapsed. He rose, and felt all round the walls. There was no doubt about it. Presently he came upon the door. He tried it. It opened. He was evidently not a prisoner. He stepped into a passage, and up to another door. This one was locked, but the key was in it. He turned it, and opening the door disclosed the square. The mystery was now solved. He was in the precincts of the tavern. He had been saved, perhaps from death, by his good friend, the inn-keeper.

The night was magnificently clear. A single star hung low in the ear of the moon. He looked all around the deserted place that during his swoon must have been the scene of butcherly justice. The remnants of the stakes were evidence that the decrees of the law had really been executed. A few fragments of charred bone were now all that remained of the girl he had loved. He seemed to scent the odour of burnt flesh in the air. Suddenly, he became aware that he was not alone in his contemplation of this field of blood. Some man was ferreting about the bases of the stakes, and sifting the human dust that paved the square. It needed no second look to tell the galley-slave who this was, so much keener than love is hate. It was the man—or more than man—of whom Marquard had conferred with the inn-keeper. It was the Hungarian—Teremtette—the Evil Eye.

For what then was he a-search among this life that had ceased to live? Marquard thought that he could answer this question. The ball of so much mystery had been given to him by the witch, as a charm that would protect from this very man. The association of the Hungarian with her made it probable that he was acquainted with her possession of it, and with its powers. Such being the case, it was a property that he must itch to lay his fingers upon. Perhaps he had even attempted, and failed, to obtain it from her while she was alive At any rate it was this, presumably, which he was agog for on the scene of her death. As a charm it would be unconsumable by fire, and had Marquard not been before him the Hungarian might have attained his end. The one weak point in the theory was that it supposed the wizard ignorant of Marquard's return. Yet this was not impossible, since surely even wizards have their limitations. Having decided Upon this explanation of his rival's presence, Marquard burned to confront him face to face. He strode boldly out of his protecting doorway. The Hungarian heard his step, looked up, and sprang to his feet. The galley-slave noted with a thrill that one of his eyes was closed. It was the Evil Eye against which he was soon to test his powers of endurance. For the wizard had evidently recognised him at once. His whole face was writhen with diabolical glee. Slowly he raised the lid that covered the Evil Eye. There was a gush of blinding light from under that veil. The square was lit up as by noonday sun. The ray struck remorselessly upon the sailor. He stood erect unshaken. Astonishment was legible upon the magician's features at this evident failure of his trusted weapon. He raised the lid to its fullest extent, and put all he was worth into the uncanny stare. But the sailor stood erect, unscathed. The charm was doing the work which its donor had foreseen, and doing that work right well. The galley-slave registered a vow never to part with it. Suddenly the magician dropped his eyelid, and the market-place once more was dark. He had apparently arrived at some decision, for now—for the first time—he spoke.

"Antlers of Belial!! Do I see before me my old friend Marquard?"

"Your enemy to the hilts you see."

"You must pardon my defective sight which obliged me to call in the aid of science before I recognised you. Who would have thought of seeing you here? But now I know you I shall not readily part with you. You shall sleep under no other roof than mine this night of your home-coming."

"Dare you speak thus to me, knowing that this day the woman we both loved has died a horrible death at hangman's hands, and all for following the course you set and staked for her?"

"Nonsense, my friend. You have been deceived by a chance resemblance, if indeed any could exist between such wrinkles as were smoothed out to-day and a face that made the stars ashamed. I regret to say that I have lost sight of her for many a year—that maiden we both knew and loved; I would give all I have left to give to see her before me as she was. Her waist was slender as the waist of death—I cannot conceive her as blue flame and grey ash. Again I say you have deceived yourself, my friend."

"Friend me no friends! What I feel for you is unscabbarded, naked hate."

"Death and the judgment! If you do not love me, you fear me, coward that you are!"

"Were I the crowning coward—the bye-word and mock of cowards—there would be one man beneath my fear."

"And do you mean that I am that man? I challenge you then to accompany me to my castle. It is worth the seeing."

"You need not press me. I ask nothing better than your company. You shall tire of me ere I tire of you. Lead, and I will follow you to the fringes of the Pit."

"We'll needs ride sabbatical post."

He plucked up two charred logs that lay near at hand. He thrust one between the knees of the galley-slave and the other between his own. He uttered a magic word, sharp, pungent, and obeyed. The logs became two stallions, black as grief and fleet as joy. Before Marquard had grasped the fact that he was mounted, they were out of the town.

The weather, as we have said, was of the clearest. A train of obscene hags, bound for some witches' frolic, was the only thing that rode the night. They passed it and left it easily in their rear. Their pace, in fact, was a pace to kill. They shook off a mile with every sweat drop. It took them a second to shoot through a forest. They cleared, not one river, but twos and threes at a time; the wind, striving to keep up with them, fell breathless. Huge mountains tossed their grandsire heads and deemed themselves impassable. These also the chargers crossed, and left them shrugging their fat shoulders far behind. But now a peak of peaks appeared—a Babel that overlooked earth, and peered into heaven—would they double that? They reached its summit, but at the instant, with a word from the sorcerer, they were logs again.

Marquard reeled as his feet touched ground. He steadied himself with an effort, and took a step forward. The Hungarian seized him by the collar, just in time to save him from a fall. They were standing upon the edge of a precipice. The sailor looked down and saw no bottom—a gulf that staggered reason. He shuddered at his escape, and reeled again. When he had somewhat recovered, he rubbed his eyes, and took a careful survey of the position.

They had been deposited at the extreme altitude of the mountain. But it was not a single peak, it formed a ring like the crater of a volcano, but of a diameter so stupendous that its further side was barely visible to the naked eye. Of its depth we have already given some idea, but the most singular feature of the whole strange place—the feature which made it impossible to regard it as a mere giant volcano—was a slender spire of rock that shot up from its unknown floor to about the same height as the surrounding rim. It might be compared to a Cleopatra's Needle set in a well, or else to the stamen of some egregious petrified flower. Or from the sailor's point of view (considering the spot where he stood as mainland) it was an islet left bare by a dried-up sea. Nor was it a desert island. It was inhabited, or at any rate it was built upon. There was a castle on it which it was just large enough to hold. The outer walls merged straight down as if one piece with the wall of rock upon which they were founded. From the front entrance, a bridge of marble, with rails of gold, spanned the abyss that separated the castle from the mountain.

While Marquard was making these observations, the Hungarian took stock of him with his single eye. When the sailor had apparently sucked in all his environment, Teremtette asked him, what seemed on the face of it, a neediest question.

"What do you see?"

"I see a castle, whiter than a bride, uplift upon yon mast of stone."

"What else do you see?"

"I see a bridge across the airy moat that parts us from that fantastic crow's nest."

"That castle and that bridge are of my architecture. If you consider as child's play all that you have dared—if you are willing to begin to show high courage—you can follow me within its gates."

He walked towards the bridge, crossed it, and disappeared within the castle walls. The galley slave sat down, and gazed at the fairy fabric in something very much like indecision. He felt among his garments to see if he still possessed the talisman, the witch's parting gift. It was there. He drew it forth and looked at it. A little shrivelled pellet, of some unknown dried substance, it was as much of an enigma to him as ever. He laid it upon the rock on which he sat, and turned again towards the castle. To his horror and astonishment it was losing its clearness of outline. It became—along with the bridge—semi-transparent. He could see through them both. They grew thinner, and thinner. They faded into little more than mist. Ultimately nothing of either was any more visible. Only the bare pillar stood up in the midst of the chasm. But no—there was a figure upon the now tonsured rock—it was the figure of the Hungarian. A moment's thought explained this. The castle alone was unsubstantial. In disappearing it left revealed the man that had been within it. He was too far off for the sailor to be sure of what he was engaged on. There ran through all Marquard's veins a current of fear. He felt helpless in the presence of all this glamour that he did not understand. He looked round for his only friend—the amulet—thank God! it was still there. He snatched it up, resolved never more to let it away from him. And then another wonderful thing occurred. The castle and its bridge again gradually appeared in sight. The sailor began to suspect the rules of the game. He could not forbear to put the talisman down again for a moment. The outlines of the magical buildings grew immediately dim. He took up the ball. Their solidity was immediately restored. He now knew his bearings. There could be no longer any doubt. Apart from their creator—the Hungarian—the castle and bridge were only visible to the holder of that wizened trifle. Marquard packed it away, with heightened respect, and deliberately walked up to, and across, the bridge. It rang substantial enough under his feet, for him to almost doubt the truth of what he had just seen. He was too near his enemy to hazard any more experiments. He found him in a goodly, square, and most singularly wall-papered room, inasmuch as each of its walls—where not pierced for a door—was one vast mirror. In the centre stood a table loaded with every delicacy in and out of season. At each side of the table was placed a luxurious chair. The Hungarian pointed to one of these and spoke.

"I bid you to this last supper, in the name of those that hold this house, if you dare sit down and feast."

"I dare do anything in your company."

"Then eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow one of us two dies. That, I believe, was the intention, with which you accompanied me hither?"

"You are right therein, as always."

"Then for an hour we will proclaim a truce to all our differences. We will pledge the survivor in flowing bowls from vintages of a thousand years. Wine you shall have creating thirst and woman creating desire. That is if you can call her woman that tempted Adam out of Paradise."

"To whom do you refer?"

"To Lilith, Eve's rival, queen of all damnations!"

"Was it for her, then, that you sold your soul and swopped an eye with Satan?"

"Ha-ha, you have heard that story. It is true that I left my eye in pawn, but it is false that I received one in exchange. This is not an eye at all—this Evil Eye as they call it—whose beam is supposed to blight wherever it falls. In your own person you have tested its perfect harmlessness."

He paused, as if to see whether the sailor had swallowed this more than doubtful statement. The latter made no sign. The wizard then proceeded to lift his sinister eyelid, until the fiery stab of the Evil Eye was a second time unveiled. As before it had no effect whatever on Marquard. The magician then lifted his finger to it, and with a twist turned the apparent eye-ball out of its socket. It slipped over the finger that had released it, and in so doing shewed what it really was. It was a ring, set with an enormous blazing stone!

Yes, this was the fabled Evil Eye, this innocent circlet of gold with its flashing stone. The magician obligingly extended the hand that now wore it, to the end that Marquard might examine it more minutely. As he got accustomed to its baleful glare, he perceived that this was not generated by the gem itself. The gem was hollow, and served merely as a receptacle for something alive that crouched within. From the eyes of this living weevil—or devil—or whatever it was—streamed the poison of ill-effect which the public had thought to proceed from an Evil Eye. Nor were they wrong after all, only that there were two evil eyes, and their owner to boot—instead of one. But even this was only the beginning of the Hungarian's surprises. Having allowed the sailor to gaze long enough upon the ring, he rested the hand that wore it upon a chair. Then with the other hand he just touched the gem at his side. It flew open and the creature that lived in it came forth. She increased in size—the sailor saw that it was a woman—a woman, whose beauty would have blinded the severest eye. She would have seduced an anchorite to dimpled sin.

"You see," laughed the Hungarian, "that, if I got no eye from the devil, he gave me a rib out of his side."

When she had reached the height of her companion Lilith stopped growing, and sat down upon her chair. The magician seated himself at one hand of her, the sailor at the other, and looked inquiringly towards the vacant place that fronted her. The Hungarian intercepted his glance, and grinned.

"Look at the mirror, man," he cried, "there are more guests here—and more august—than you imagine."

The galley-slave looked at the mirror behind the vacant side of the table, and started from his seat in sudden terror. The mirror reflected the back of someone as if occupying that chair, which nevertheless still stood in front of it, empty. The sailor looked from chair to mirror—from mirror to chair again—but there was no mistaking that weird fact. His hair stood up. He sank into his seat. He snatched to his white lips the first goblet that came to hand. The magician at once took up his own glass and cried out, mockingly,

"I second your toast! To the health of our guest—the Orb and Sceptre of all the hells!"

From that the orgie waxed fast and furious. They swam in music. The room was grey with incense. Their lights were balls of coloured fire that flashed in the air, and ever and anon dropping into their cups hissed like snapdragons. Songs were sung that fallen angels had brought from paradise. Tales were told of doings done before the world was planned. But who sung, and who narrated was beyond the sailor's ken, a-swim as he was with wine and witchery. He grew more and more bemused. The table whirled round and round. The viands slipped away from his hands, when he turned to look at his fair neighbour he could only find the one eye of the Hungarian. The mirrors gave back distortions. All was confusion and delusion, and mocking laughter in his ears. After a brave attempt to keep his head, he rolled upon the floor. The vintages of a thousand years had done their work.

When he awoke, with a splitting headache, the room was clear. The Hungarian paced up and dawn at one end. A glance at him sufficed to show that the matchless ring had been restored to its socket.

"Ha-ha," laughed the sorcerer, "are you looking for the girl you were so sweet on last night? Behold her!" He lifted his eyelid, and there flashed forth coquettish lights from the prisoner of the gem.

The sailor sprang to his feet.

"Arch and unheard-of juggler," he cried, "your play is played, and your curtain is nigh to ringing down. You have done the devil's work—beshrew the like!—and you shall get the devil's wages. You shall rue the day you brought me here."

"The nightmare be your bride! Were you not girt with an adverse fate you had dawned in a fiercer place than this! And now, if you are bent upon a duel—and the laws of hospitality do not protect me—I will even let you take the lead."

"Then look to yourself, witch-master!" cried the sailor, drawing a rusty pistol from his long sea-boot. He took aim, and fired; the bullet struck the Hungarian, and rebounded. A peal of laughter shook the hall.

"The devil kiss your lips!" cried the sorcerer; "you have no reach for me! But try again if you like before I set my foot on the neck of your revenge."

The sailor considered. It was no use wasting another leaden bullet on a man who was evidently impregnable to such. He remembered that a silver button cut from one's coat was considered sovereign against a wizard when all else failed. But, unfortunately, Marquard wore no silver buttons, and very few buttons of any kind. An idea struck him, there was the magic ball that the witch had given him. It was true that, if it flew wide of its mark, he would have staked, and lost, his all; since he would no longer boast any influence to protect him. On the other hand, he felt a presentiment that it would not fail him. In any case the sorcerer, who was aware by this time of his possession of the talisman, seemed, from his good humour, to have forged some device by which he could counteract it. Marquard threw his scruples to the wind, and rammed the amulet into the pistol.

"I will bring your royal insolence a-dust," he cried, "in hackneyed, unoriginal death for all that you are the devil's fetch and carry!"

He fired. Thunder shook the furthest stars. The room was full of fÅ“tid smoke. As it partially cleared away, the galley-slave saw his enemy lying supine upon the ground. He crept up to him, still misdoubting, and touched him gingerly. He was dead. But when Marquard came to look upon his face, he started back surprised, all trace of the ring had entirely disappeared. Both the sorcerer's eyes were open, and both were now a match. But whence had come back this long-lost eye? It was the ball which the witch had handed over to Marquard—the ball which Marquard had loaded into his pistol—the ball which had steered unerring to its ancient seat, and ousted the usurper which it found there. Marquard reverently lifted the fallen pride of wizardry and carried him gently to the outer gate. This man upon whom he had served the warrant of that bowelless catch-poll—Death, this clay, after all was said and done, had once been boyhood like himself. Lovers of one girl the tunes of their two lives were built upon the same bottom note. It was with tenderness that Marquard tossed the body into the abyss. He did not know how soon he was to follow it. It had scarcely disappeared when he became aware from the thinning of the castle that he had unwittingly got rid of the power which enabled him to cross the bridge. The golden railing had already vanished. He started to run, but the marble under his feet was softening, and he sank in it to the ankles at every step. A little further and his legs went through to the knee. With incredible exertions he reached the centre, but could go no further. He floundered in the fast ebbing material, hopelessly, to the waist. Then he sank to his armpits—spread out his arms so as to hold yet a second to life—but finally the last remnants of the bridge evaporated, and he fell plumb into the gulf, turning over and over in his fall.