CHAPTER VIII.

THE BOULEVART DE LUXEMBOURG.

Impatient as I was for the hour to arrive, in which all my doubts might be forever solved, yet Beverly was still more so. No condemned man ever wished more ardently for the moment when, by the halter or the glaive, the grand secret should be revealed to him, than did my friend for that in which he should know the best or the worst for him.

Three o’clock found us within a stone’s throw of the house designated as the rendezvous, and the three or four little shingles in front of it with “Appartements à louer,” “Chambres garni,” and “Cabinets meubles,” told at once that it was one of those middle-class establishments where a person might hire rooms and live undisturbed for a whole lifetime, provided the rent was duly paid.

Into the square, paved court of this house we entered, and before the least inquiry was made, the _concierge_ came out of his crib, saluted us respectfully, and said: “You are two of the gentlemen expected here to-day by the occupant of the second floor. Please ascend. You will find him in the first room to the left,” and the old fellow hobbled back to his nest, and instantly began pegging away at the heel of a shoe, which he was engaged in healing and heeling when we entered the court.

Following his directions, we ascended a broad, winding stairway of stone, and found ourselves on a landing. From this landing one stairway ascended, and another led to the court below. At the further end, but on the side, was a door, and at the hither end another. The house itself stood quite isolated from all others, and the windows of the rooms, it was clear, must overlook the boulevart and a lane crossing it at right angles. We entered the first door, and found ourselves in a very plainly-furnished, large, square room, having two windows at the end, two more on the side, a cupboard, recess, and two large folding doors, both standing wide open, so that, finding no person in the first room, we passed through them into the second, but still failed to see or even hear the least indication that their occupant was anywhere around. I was glad of this, for it gave opportunity for an examination of the premises; therefore calling the _concierge_, I asked him the name, occupation, and period of occupancy of his second-floor tenant, to which he very readily responded, by saying that his tenant was a foreign scholar named Elarettav; that he was wealthy, had lived there five years, and saw very little company, never dined or eat in the house, and in short was a very fine man, indeed--he paid two louis a month for porter’s fees! The _concierge_ left, and I carefully remarked the place, and found the floor and ceiling was of stone, as are all French houses. The cupboard was low, narrow, and filled with wine bottles and glasses, far more like a student’s quarters than a grave philosopher’s like Ravalette, if, indeed, that personage was the same described as Elarettav by the porter. The recess was small and simple, and contained nothing but a cot bedstead and its appropriate furniture. I concluded that there was no preparation for magic, if any was intended, and as this notion passed through my mind, the clock struck four, and we heard the footsteps of a man in the other room, notwithstanding the door was not seen to open. We went to that other room, and, “Ravalette, as I live!” exclaimed Beverly; and, sure enough, there stood, calmly smiling, just such an old gentleman as I had heard described.

“You have sought, and you have found me! I hope you will profit by the finding,” said he to Beverly; “and you, sir, have done well to accompany your friend,” addressing me in a tone slightly insulting, and all the more so from being slight. It was evident that he did not relish my presence in the least, and as for me I had no sooner set eyes on my man than I felt assured of the truth of my theory, and that I stood in presence of one of the ablest intellects on earth--a man capable of all that had been attributed to him, and one who would reach his goal and carry his point at all hazards, even if in doing so it were necessary to sail through seas of human blood. I flatter myself on my ability to measure men and to circumvent deliberate villainy, and no sooner had I heard the tones of Ravalette’s voice, and seen the clear-cut features of his face, than I at once suspected some sort of foul play was on the tapis, and which I determined to thwart, even if I had to give him the solid contents of a couple of Derringers and a Colt’s revolver, which I had taken care to provide myself with before venturing into what might have been the den of unscrupulous wretches, for aught I knew to the contrary. It may be that Ravalette read my thoughts, for he certainly looked uneasy, but said nothing, for at that moment the _concierge_ threw open the door and announced “_Monsieur Hokeis et fille_,” and my travelling companion and his daughter--the most voluptuous and glorious looking woman that I had ever beheld in any land, not even excepting the glowing beauties of Beyrout or Stamboul--entered the room.

Ravalette seemed to have been expecting them, and did not appear at all surprised at their uninvited presence; but the effect upon Hokeis and his daughter, the very moment they beheld his face, was perfectly electrical, yet totally dissimilar, for Hokeis instantly threw himself upon his knees before Ravalette, bent his head, and folded his hands in an attitude half supplicatory, half adoring, and said:

“Oh, dread genius of the Fire and the Flame! do I see thee here? Alas! I am a wretched man, but thou art powerful and will forgive! My defection was not my choice, but that of accident, and in the religion of Isauvi have I found more peace than ever in thy temples of the temples of Astarte!”

My brain fairly reeled beneath the tremendous rush of emotions, conflicting as a whirlwind, excited by this extraordinary scene; while, as for Beverly, his face was like an ashen cloth, his limbs were like an aspen.

The next moment these emotions underwent an entire change, for the woman, who appeared not to have taken the least notice of her father’s action or speech, went straight up to Ravalette, placed her jewelled hand upon his shoulder, looked him straight in the eye, as if she would wither and crush him at a glance, and in a voice low, but clear and deep, said: “And so, thou fiend, we meet again! Art going to essay more of thy tricks and magic spells? Art going to set more snares for the daughter of Im Hokeis? Wretch, thou art foiled again! What, tell me, what! thou fiend of Darkness, couldst thou gain by persecuting me now, as in my loneliness? What wouldst thou gain by seeing me wedded--to ‘no matter whom’--as you said, so long as I was wedded? Why have you haunted me, asleep and awake, tempting, driving me toward a marriage? What hadst thou to gain? You do not answer. Well, I will answer for you:

“Do you remember a day, long years ago, when I was a child, beyond the great salt sea, that you came to an old man’s door and craved shelter for the night? Well, I do. You were received by the generous Indian. You shared his table, his pipe, and his cider. Then, as you sat by the fire, you noticed me, and must needs tell my fortune. You did so, and truly. You said that in one month from that day I should meet a sad-hearted youth, weary, weeping, miserable, lonely; that he would engage my heart, and that I would easily be led to love and wed him; but that _if_ I did so, black clouds would lower over us, and that our morn of love would bring a noon of dislike, an evening of sorrow, and a night of crime, ignominy and death. You said that my union with any other man would bring all that could render life desirable. I believed you, for a hundred things that you foretold came to pass. At length, three weeks of the month elapsed; and one night I had a dream, and in it I saw you, and the young man, whom in the body I had never yet beheld. In that dream you repeated all that you had said before, and then you disappeared; but your hateful presence had no sooner quit me than there came a glorious being, robed in majesty and beauty, who bade me heed you not, but to love this poor creature whose shadow was then before me--to love, but not confess it till the proper time should come;--that if I wedded another than him I might be happy, but that if I married him I would redeem a soul from a terrible fate. He bade me resist you, and to encourage the youth, cheer up his heart, and tell him not to despair, _for he might be happy yet_. He also”--but she had not time to say another word, for Beverly rushed forward, pushed Ravalette away, seized the woman’s hand, kissed it, and exclaimed:

“‘Evlambéa!’

“‘Beverly!’”

And in an instant they were locked in each other’s arms.

It was indeed the friend of long-gone years, and yet I had not even suspected this fact, even after hearing the story of Im Hokeis and the gipsy adventure.

I felt that this drama was getting deeper every minute, but had not time to think of one half of what was occurring ere the door was opened by no less a personage than the Commissary of Police, followed by two of the _garde de ville_, while, through the open door, I saw that the stairs and landing were literally crowded with _gens d’arms_.

The drama was getting very serious.

Ravalette stood unmoved, and smiled, saying:

“Your trouble is in vain, monsieur! You are not wanted here, and will immediately return whither you came, while monsieur here, who engaged you to come, is at liberty to remain.”

This cool speech disconcerted the official a little, but he replied: “It is my duty to protect all who demand it for themselves or others.”

“True; but in this case no act has been committed or designed that could in the least afford just ground for such a demand. Still, as you are here, why here you may remain until you are satisfied of the truth of my remarks. Pray be seated.”

The term “intensely dramatic” would not begin to give an adequate notion of the “situation” at this particular juncture of affairs. The only person who was completely at ease was Ravalette. As for Hokeis, the brush of Michael Angelo and Raphael combined could not have done justice to his portrait, nor have limned one-hundredth part of the intense and overwhelming astonishment and horror depicted on his countenance at what he beheld and heard. No two persons looked at the affair in the same light, nor regarded the Enigma from the same point of view, neither did they comprehend each other, but all were comprehended by the great master before them.

For a while an unpleasant silence reigned, which was at length, much to my surprise, broken by my Rosicrucian friend, Beverly, who, looking Ravalette straight in the eye, said:

“Whoever you are, I forgive you for the attempt to prevent myself, a son of Adam, wedding with this woman, Evlambéa, the Bright-shining Daughter of Ish; I forgive you for persecuting her toward a marriage with another, which marriage must have doomed me to a fate I have for centuries shrunk from; I forgive you all the woe you have caused me, because gratitude for what you have done for me exacts this; and because I suspect your agent saved my life when the retort burst in Boston, when I was repeating La Brière’s experiment with phosphorus. Through you, or such as you, I have learned priceless secrets. The mystery of Magic Mirrors I am grateful for being taught. The secret of ages--the art of making the Elixir of Life, whereof whosoever shall drink shall never know decay, but so long as once a year he shall quaff thereof, may enjoy perpetual youth--I am inexpressibly thankful for. I shall never use this secret for that purpose, but five of the seven ingredients, when mingled, constitute what chemistry has sought in vain; and bequeathing this portion of the formulæ to my friend, and through him to the medical world, I shall atone for my few faults by giving life to thousands.

“Freely, without force or compulsion, I solemnly promise to sleep the sleep of Sialam before I quit this house, and in it will truly answer you all I may be able to, on condition that you previously clear up the mystery surrounding yourself; thus voluntarily giving you what an age of fraud would not enable you to obtain, you first solemnly promising, by Him by whose will you exist, be you man or demon, not to influence me, either now or when I shall slumber.”

A gleam of sudden joy flashed from the eyes of the strange being before us. He looked like a bridegroom in the fullness of his joy, and clasping both hands--pale, thin, bluish-white hands--upon his breast, he looked up and said:

“So be it! I solemnly bind myself, by the most terrible oath conceivable, that I accept all your conditions.”

Then going to the recess mentioned before, he brought thence a semi-circular screen, a little taller than a man, and about four feet in diameter. This he requested the Commissary of Police to examine, who did so, and declared it to be nothing but a common bedside screen.

“You are right! it _is_ nothing but a bedside screen. Such as it is, however, I request you to select for it any spot you choose upon the stone floor of either of these rooms. I shall want to go behind it; and that you may not harbor a thought of an intended evasion on my part, I request that you call your men into the room and give them orders to _shoot me_ if I attempt to pass them!”

“Just as you please, monsieur! Pierre, call the guard.”

In obedience to this summons, the _corps de garde_ filed into the room, twenty-seven strong, and as soon as the last man entered, the officer addressed them, saying, as he pointed to Ravalette, “This gentleman thinks to escape. See to it that he does not pass you alive. The very instant that he appears unattended by myself, fire upon him. I so command you: see that my orders are executed. Does that suit you, Monsieur Ravalette?”

“Perfectly--perfectly! nothing could be better,” said the latter.

“You will place fourteen men around the house to watch the windows, and the other thirteen you will distribute on the stairs and landing,” said the commissary.

“It shall be done,” said the sergeant, as he marched his men from the chamber--but not till I had placed a double-barrelled Deringer and a Colt’s revolver, both freshly capped and loaded, in his hands--for I hated Ravalette; man or demon, I hated him religiously--that being the strongest kind of dislike--and I had an intense desire to ascertain whether he was bullet-proof or not.

During all this time, the father, daughter, lover, myself, and the commissary’s two comrades had said nothing, but at a sign from Ravalette we took our seats in such a position that we commanded the hall-door, that between the two rooms, the recess, the cupboard, and the windows on either side. The commissary placed the convex side of the screen toward us, in the middle of the room, and then taking a seat by my side, said, that so far as he was concerned, all was ready, and from the pallor of his lips, the tone in which he spoke, and from the frequency with which he crossed himself and muttered an orison, compounded of bad French and worse Latin, it was clear that he wished his hands well washed of the whole affair.

“I, too, am ready,” observed the wizard, “and I, who have nothing to conceal, declare that I am he whom yonder man--Im Hokeis, and his Guebre-tribe, have for centuries believed to be the God of Fire and of Flame. The mystery of my being cannot yet be solved. I am not alone! The mastery, over Matter and over Magic, is an inheritance of the ages. We who were once as others are, became doomed ones by reason of the curse of a dying man, and like Isaac Ahasuerus, the Hebrew of Jerusalem, who cursed and spat upon the Man of Sorrows when bearing his gibbet up the steep lane of the Dolorous Way, and whom the Meek one cursed, and bade tarry on earth till he came--even so is he not alone. Powerful in all else, not one of us can read his own future; but for that must depend on gifted ones like yonder Beverly. Such are seldom born; but when they are, there is only one opportunity to make them subservient to our aid--they must be unwedded in soul, else they cannot enter the sleep of Sialam, and in no other way can the scroll of Fate be read for us. Hence the obstacles thrown in his path and in that of yonder girl.... It is possible to shift our fate upon the neutral, whoever he may be; but in this case a strong motive existed to saddle the centuries upon yonder man, who has, in various forms, been my contemporary since ages previous to the laying of the foundations of Babylon and Nineveh.

“There is one more in being--by him I have been foiled--the Stranger--and still another--the mother of this Beverly’s body. I hoped to win him by Magic; I have failed. He has seen me thus, as I am,”--and so saying, Ravalette slowly moved around the screen, continuing to speak all the while, until he reappeared on the other corner--and saying, “and thus.” We were astonished beyond measure at the change that had, in less than twelve seconds, taken place.

Ravalette no longer stood before us, but instead, we saw a thin, lean, little, wrinkled old man, the perfect opposite in everything of the person we had just conversed with. “Miakus! as I live--the man of Portland and of Boston--the same!” exclaimed Beverly, as the figure passed once more from view behind the screen, and almost instantly reappeared in a totally dissimilar guise. “And thus!” said the wizard. “My heaven!” said Beverly, “it is Ettelavar, my mysterious guide and teacher in the kingdom of Trance and Dream!”

Again this strange being passed around the screen, saying, “and thus,” as he reappeared successively as the Italian Count and Vatterale. The wizard said, when in the last form, “Mai is but a transposition of I am; ‘Miakus’ is ‘Myself,’ Vatterale is an anagram of Ravalette, and a school-boy would have told you that Ettelavar is but Ravalette reversed--the name meaning ‘The Mysterious.’ To you, Beverly, I have been all these. Behold me now as I really am,” and he passed around the screen, and reappeared again as a little, withered old man, clothed in flaming red from head to heel.

“The Vampire, Dhoula Bel!” shrieked both Beverly and Im Hokeis in the same breath.

* * * * *

What passed during the next half hour, it would not be proper for me here to relate. Suffice it, that at the end of that time Beverly had fallen asleep, apparently of his own free will. What followed will be seen in the next, and concluding chapter of this work.