Part 18 (1/2)
”Spirits at your command! Yes, some of them in there, I think,” and he pointed to the black bottle on the table, ”and others too, perhaps; I will not deny it. Well, let them advance, and we will see who is on the top of the mountain, I, the old paid advocate of G.o.d, or you and your spirits, Madame,” and hooking the handle of the big umbrella over his wrist, he folded his arms and stared at her through the blue spectacles.
Madame Riennes gibbered some invocation, but nothing happened.
”I await your spirits. They cannot have gone to bed so early,” remarked the Pasteur like a new Elijah.
Then, also like Elijah, to use a vulgarism, he ”sailed in” after a way which even the terrified G.o.dfrey, who was crouching against one of the purple curtains, felt to be really magnificent with such artistic sense as remained to him. In his mediaeval Latin which, spoken with a foreign accent, G.o.dfrey, although a good scholar, could scarcely follow save for certain holy names, he cursed Madame Riennes in some archaic but most effective fas.h.i.+on. He consigned, this much G.o.dfrey made out, her soul to h.e.l.l and her body to a number of the most uncomfortable experiences. He trailed her in the dust at the rear of his theological chariot; he descended from the chariot, so to speak, and jumped upon her as he had done upon the beetle; he tossed up her mangled remains as the holy bull, Apis of the Egyptians, might have done with those of a Greek blasphemer. Then, like a triumphant pugilist, metaphorically he stood over her and asked her if she wanted any more.
For a little while Madame Riennes was crushed, also very evidently frightened, for those who deal in the supernatural are afraid of the supernatural. Indeed, none of us welcome the curse even of a malignant and disappointed beggar, or of the venomous gipsy angered by this or that, and much less that of a righteous man inspired by just and holy indignation. Madame Riennes, an expert in the trade, a dealer in maledictions, was not exempt from this common prejudice. As she would have expressed it, she felt that he had the Power on his side.
But Madame was no common charlatan; she had strength of a sort, though where it came from who could say? Moreover, for all kinds of secret reasons of her own, she desired to keep in her grip this boy G.o.dfrey, who had shown himself to be so wonderful a medium or clairvoyant. To her he meant strength and fortune; also for him she had conceived some kind of unholy liking in the recesses of her dark soul. Therefore, she was not prepared to give him up without a struggle.
Presently Madame seemed to cast off the influences with which the Pasteur had overwhelmed her. While his maledictions were in full flow she sank in a huddled heap upon the couch. Of a sudden she revived; she sprang up; notwithstanding her bulk she leapt into the air like a ballet-dancer. She tore the golden mantilla from her head, letting down a flood of raven hair, streaked with grey, and waved it round her. She called upon the names of spirits or demons, long, resounding names with an Eastern ring about them, to come to her aid. Then she pranced into the centre of the room, crying:
”Dog of a clergyman, I defy you and will overcome you. That boy's soul is mine, not yours. I am the greatest mesmerist in the world and he is in my net. I will show you!”
She turned towards the shrivelled, almost naked mummy in the case, and addressed it:
”O Nofri,” she said, ”Priestess of Set, great seeress and magician of the old world in whom once my spirit dwelt, send forth your Ka, your everlasting Emanation, to help me. Crush this black hound. Come forth, come forth!”
As she spoke the fearful G.o.dfrey in his corner saw the door of the gla.s.s case fly open, also as he thought, probably erroneously, that he saw the mummy move, lifting its stiff legs and champing its iron jaws so that the yellow, ancient teeth caught the light as they moved. Then he heard and saw something else. Suddenly the Pasteur in tones that rang like a trumpet, cried out:
”She seems to hesitate, this mummy of yours, Madame. Let me be polite and help her.”
With a single bound he was in front of the case. With the hook of his big umbrella he caught the shrivelled thing round the neck; with his long thin arm he gripped it about the middle, just like somebody leading a lady to the dance, thought G.o.dfrey. Then he bent himself and pulled. Out flew the age-withered corpse. The head came off, the body broke above the hips and fell upon the floor, leaving the legs standing in the case, a ghastly spectacle. On to this severed trunk the Pasteur leapt, again as he had done upon the black beetle. It crunched and crumbled, filling the air with a pungent, resinous dust. Then he stood amidst the debris, and placing his right foot upon what had been the mummy's nose, said mildly:
”Now, Madame, what next? This lady is finished?”
Madame Riennes uttered a stifled scream, more she could not do for rage choked her. Her big eyes rolled, she clenched and unclenched her hands, and bent forward as though she were about to fly at the Pasteur like a wild cat. Still poised upon the fragments of the mummy he lifted the point of the umbrella to receive the charge as it came, and taking advantage of Madame's temporary paralysis of speech, went on:
”Hearken! daughter of Beelzebub. You have the curse and it shall work upon your soul, but, yes, it shall work well. Still your body remains, and of that too I would say something. Know that I have heard much of you--oh! the quiet old Pasteur hears many things, especially if he has members of the secret police among his flock. I think that yonder in an office there is a _dossier_, yes, an official record concerning you and your doings both in this country and in other lands. It has been allowed to sleep, but it can wake again; if it wakes--well, there is the penitentiary for such as you.”
Madame gasped and turned green. If Monsieur had drawn a bow at a venture, evidently that chance arrow had found the bull's-eye, for now she truly was frightened.
”What would you have me do?” she asked in a choking voice.
”Free this youth from your influence, as you can if you will.”
”My influence! If I had any with him would not that bald skull of yours by now have been shattered like an egg, seeing that he is strong and holds a stick?”
”I have no time to waste, Madame. The Police Office closes early on Sundays.”
Then she gave in.
”Come here,” she said sullenly to G.o.dfrey, still speaking in French.
He came and stood before her sneezing, for the pungent dust of the smashed mummy, which the Pasteur still ground beneath his large boots, had floated up his nose.
”Cease that noise, little fool, and look at me.”
G.o.dfrey obeyed, but did not stop sneezing, because the mixture of spices and organic matter would not allow him to do so. She stared at him very evilly, muttered some more words, and made mystic upward pa.s.ses with her hands.
”There now,” she said, ”you are free, so far as I am concerned. But I do not think that you are done with spirits, since they are guests which once entertained to breakfast, stop to luncheon and to dinner; yes, and pa.s.s the night when they are merriest. I think you will see many spirits before you die, and afterwards--ah! who knows, little pig?