第23章

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the length of time it had probably been there.The portrait was that of a man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven or forty-eight.It was a remarkable face,--a most impressive face.If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the emerald,--and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it, and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765.Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring;this, on being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid.

Within-side the lid were engraved, "Marianna to thee.Be faithful in life and in death to ----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me.I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder within his own house,--that of his mistress and his rival.I said nothing of this to Mr.J----, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge of a chisel.When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very singular apparatus in the nicest order.Upon a small, thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled with a clear liquid,--on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers to denote the planets.Apeculiar but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel.Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material effect on the nerves.We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room,--a creeping, tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair.Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer.As I did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor.The liquid was spilled; the saucer was broken; the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing more happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: "On all that it can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living or dead, as moves the needle, so works my will!

Accursed be the house, and restless be the dwellers therein."We found no more.Mr.J---- burned the tablet and its anathema.

He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with the chamber over it.He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found in all London.Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints.

A drowning man clutching at a straw--such is Dr.Fenwick, hero of Bulwer-Lytton's "Strange Story" when he determines to lend himself to alleged "magic" in the hope of saving his suffering wife from the physical dangers which have succeeded her mental disease.The proposition has been made to him by Margrave, a wanderer in many countries, who has followed the Fenwicks from England to Australia.

Margrave declares that he needs an accomplice to secure an "elixir of life" which his own failing strength demands.His mysterious mesmeric or hypnotic influence over Mrs.Fenwick had in former days been marked; and on the basis of this undeniable fact, he has endeavored to show that his own welfare and Mrs.Fenwick's are, in some occult fashion, knit together, and that only by aiding him in some extraordinary experiment can the physician snatch his beloved Lilian from her impending doom.

As the first chapter opens, Fenwick is learning his wife's condition from his friend, Dr.Faber.

Bulwer-LyttonThe IncantationI

"I believe that for at least twelve hours there will be no change in her state.I believe also that if she recover from it, calm and refreshed, as from a sleep, the danger of death will have passed away.""And for twelve hours my presence would be hurtful?""Rather say fatal, if my diagnosis be right."I wrung my friend's hand, and we parted.

Oh, to lose her now; now that her love and her reason had both returned, each more vivid than before! Futile, indeed, might be Margrave's boasted secret; but at least in that secret was hope.

In recognized science I saw only despair.

And at that thought all dread of this mysterious visitor vanished--all anxiety to question more of his attributes or his history.His life itself became to me dear and precious.What if it should fail me in the steps of the process, whatever that was, by which the life of my Lilian might be saved!