The Dark Star

by Robert W. Chambers

The women seem to be agreeable, and they all are most beautifully gowned. Some have titles. But all seem to be a little too much made up. I don’t know any of them except formally. But I feel that I know some of the men better—especially the old General and a young military attaché of the Russian Embassy, whom everybody likes and pets, and whom everybody calls Prince Erlik—such a handsome boy! And his real name is Alak, and I think he is very much in love with Princess Naïa.

Now, something very odd has happened which I wish to tell you about. My father, as you know, was missionary in the Vilayet of Trebizond many years ago. While there he came into possession of a curious sea chest belonging to a German named Conrad Wilner, who was killed in a riot near Gallipoli.

In this chest were, and still are, two very interesting things—an old bronze Chinese figure which I used to play with when I was a child. It was called the Yellow Devil; and a native Chinese missionary once read for us the inscription on the figure which identified it as a Mongol demon called Erlik, the Prince of Darkness.

The other object of interest in the box was the manuscript diary kept by this Herr Wilner to within a few moments of his death. This I have often heard read aloud by my father, but I forget much of it now, and I never understood it all, because I was too young. Now, here is the curious thing about it all. The first time you spoke to me of the Princess Naïa Mistchenka, I had a hazy idea that her name seemed familiar to me. And ever since I have known her, now and then I found myself trying to recollect where I had heard that name, even before I heard it from you.

Suddenly, one evening about a week ago, it came to me that I had heard both the names, Naïa and Mistchenka, when I was a child. Also the name Erlik. The two 147 former names occur in Herr Wilner’s diary; the latter I heard from the Chinese missionary years ago; and that is why they seemed so familiar to me.

It is so long since I have read the diary that I can’t remember the story in which the names Naïa and Mistchenka are concerned. As I recollect, it was a tragic story that used to thrill me.

At any rate, I didn’t speak of this to Princess Naïa; but about a week ago there were a few people dining here with us—among others an old Turkish Admiral, Murad Pasha, who took me out. And as soon as I heard his name I thought of that diary; and I am sure it was mentioned in it.

Anyway, he happened to speak of Trebizond; and, naturally, I said that my father had been a missionary there many years ago.

As this seemed to interest him, and because he questioned me, I told him my father’s name and all that I knew in regard to his career as a missionary in the Trebizond district. And, somehow—I don’t exactly recollect how it came about—I spoke of Herr Wilner, and his death at Gallipoli, and how his effects came into my father’s possession.

And because the old, sleepy-eyed Admiral seemed so interested and amused, I told him about Herr Wilner’s box and his diary and the plans and maps and photographs with which I used to play as a little child.