Part 2 (2/2)
He might have fled, for he was trusted at the door, and at any moment could have opened it and escaped. But Jehan never doubted his master's power to find him and bring him back; and the thought did not enter his mind. After a week or so, familiarity wrought on him, as on all. The house grew less terrifying, the darkness lost its horror, the air of silence and dread its first paralysing influence. He began to sleep better. Curiosity, in a degree, took the place of fear. He fell to poring over the signs of the Zodiac, and to taking furtive peeps into the crystal. The toad became his playfellow. He fed it with c.o.c.kroaches, and no longer wanted employment.
The astrologer saw the change in the lad, and perhaps was not wholly pleased with it. By-and-by he took steps to limit it. One day he found Jehan playing with the toad with something of a boy's abandon, making the uncouth creature leap over his hands, and tickling it with a straw. The boy rose on his entrance, and shrank away; for his fear of the man's sinister face and silent ways was not in any way lessened. But Notredame called him back. ”You are beginning to forget,” he said, eyeing the child grimly.
The boy trembled under his gaze, but did not dare to answer.
”Whose are you?”
Jehan looked this way and that. At length, with dry lips, he muttered, ”Yours.”
”No, you are not,” the man in black replied. ”Think again. You have a short memory.”
Jehan thought and sweated. But the man would have his answer, and at last Jehan whispered, ”The devil's.”
”That is better,” the astrologer said coldly. ”Do you know what this is?”
He held up a gla.s.s bowl. The boy recognised it, and his hair began to rise. But he shook his head.
”It is holy water,” the man in black said, his small cruel eyes devouring the boy. ”Hold out your hand.”
Jehan dared not refuse ”This will try you,” Notredame said slowly, ”whether you are the devil's or not. If not, water will not hurt you. If so, if you are his for ever and ever, to do his will and pleasure, then it will burn like fire!”
At the last word he suddenly sprinkled some with a brush on the boy's hand. Jehan leapt back with a shriek of pain, and, holding the burned hand to his breast, glared at his master with starting eyes.
”It burns,” said the astrologer pitilessly, ”It burns. It is as I said. You are his. His! After this I think you will remember. Now go.”
Jehan went away, shuddering with horror and pain. But the lesson had not the precise effect intended. He continued to fear his master, but he began to hate him also, with a pa.s.sionate, lasting hatred strange in a child. Though he still shrank and crouched in his presence, behind his back he was no longer restrained by fear. The boy knew of no way in which he could avenge himself. He did not form any plans to that end, he did not conceive the possibility of the thing. But he hated; and, given the opportunity, was ripe to seize it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”JEHAN LEAPT BACK WITH A SHRIEK OF PAIN” (p. 74).]
He was locked in whenever Notredame went out; and in this way he spent many solitary and fearful hours. These led him, however, in the end, to a discovery. One day, about the middle of December, while he was poking about the house in the astrologer's absence, he found a door. I say ”found,” for though it was not a secret door, it was small and difficult to detect, being placed in the side of the straight, narrow pa.s.sage at the head of the little staircase which led from the lower to the upper chambers. At first he thought it was locked, but coming to examine it more closely, though in mere curiosity, he found the handle of the latch let into a hollow of the panel. He pressed this, and the door yielded a little.
At the time the boy was scared. He saw the place was dark, drew the door to the jamb again, and went away without satisfying his curiosity. But in a little while the desire to know what was behind the door overcame his terror. He returned with a taper, and, pressing the latch again, pushed the door open and entered, his heart beating loudly.
He held up his taper, and saw a very narrow, bare closet, made in the thickness of the wall. And that was all, for the place was empty--the one and only thing it contained being a soft, rough mat which covered the floor. The boy stared fearfully about him, still expecting something dreadful, but there was nothing else to be seen. And gradually his fears subsided, and his curiosity with them, and he went out again.
Another day, however, when he came into this place, he made a discovery. Against either wall he saw a morsel of black cloth fastened--a little flap a few inches long and three inches wide. He held the light first to one and then to another of these, but he could make nothing of them until he noticed that the lower edges were loose. Then he raised one. It disclosed a long, narrow slit, through which he could see the laboratory, with the fire burning dully, the phials glistening, and the crocodile going through its unceasing pretence of arousing itself. He raised the other, and found a slit there, too; but as the chamber on that side--the room with the astrolabe--was in darkness, he could see nothing. He understood, however. The closet was a spying-place, and these were Judas-holes, so arranged that the occupant, himself unheard and unseen, could see and hear all that happened on either side of him.
It was the astrologer's custom to lock up the large room next the Rue Touchet when he went out. For this reason, and because the place was forbidden, the boy lingered at the Judas-hole, gazing into it. He knew by this time most of the queer things it contained, and the red glow of the furnace fire gave it, to his mind, a weird kind of comfort. He listened to the ashes falling, and the ticking of some clockwork at the farther end. He began idly to enumerate all the things he could see; but the curtain which shut off the laboratory proper threw a great shadow across the room, and this he strove in vain to pierce. To see the better, he put out his light and looked again. He had scarcely brought his eyes back to the slit, however, when a low grating noise caught his ear. He started and held his breath, but before he could stir a finger the heavy door which communicated with the Rue Touchet slowly opened a foot or two, and the astrologer came in.
For a few seconds the boy remained gazing, afraid to breathe or move. Then, with an effort, he dropped the cloth over the slit, and crept softly away.
CHAPTER V.
THE UPPER PORTAL.
The astrologer was not alone. A tall figure, cloaked and m.u.f.fled to the chin, entered after him, and stood waiting at his elbow while he secured the fastenings of the door. Apparently, they had only met on the threshold, for the stranger, after looking round him and silently noting the fantastic disorder of the room, said, in a hoa.r.s.e voice, ”You do not know me?”
”Perfectly, M. de Vidoche,” the astrologer answered, removing his hat.
”Did you know I was following you?”
”I came to show you the way.”
”That is a lie, at any rate!” the young n.o.ble retorted, with a sneer, ”for I did not know I was coming myself.”
”Until you saw me,” the astrologer answered, unmoved. ”Will you not take off your cloak? You will need it when you leave.”
M. de Vidoche complied with an ill grace. ”The usual stock-in-trade, I see,” he muttered, looking round him scornfully. ”Skulls and bones, and dead hands and gibbet-ropes. Faugh! The place smells. I suppose these are the things you keep to frighten children.”
”Some,” Notredame answered calmly--he was busy lighting a lamp--”and some are for sale.”
”For sale?” M. de Vidoche cried incredulously. ”Who will buy them?”
”Some one thing, and some another,” the astrologer answered carelessly. ”Take this, for instance,” he continued, turning to his visitor, and looking at him for the first time. ”I expect to find a customer for that very shortly.”
M. de Vidoche followed the direction of his finger, and shuddered, despite himself. ”That” was a coffin. ”Enough of this,” he said, with savage impatience. ”Suppose you get off your high horse, and come to business. Can I sit, man, or are you going to keep me standing all night?”
The man in black brought forward two stools, and led the way behind the curtain. ”It is warmer here,” he said, pus.h.i.+ng aside an earthen pipkin, and clearing a s.p.a.ce with his foot in front of the glowing embers. ”Now I am at your service, M. de Vidoche. Pray be seated.”
”Are we alone?” the young n.o.ble asked suspiciously.
”Trust me for that,” the astrologer answered. ”I know my business.”
But M. de Vidoche seemed to find some difficulty in stating his; though he had evinced so high a regard for time a moment before. He sat irresolute, stealing malevolent glances first at his companion, and then at the dull, angry-looking fire. If he expected M. Notredame to help him, however, he did not yet know his host. The astrologer sat patiently waiting, with every expression, save placid expectation, discharged from his face.
”Oh, d----n you!” the young man e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed at last. ”Have you got nothing to say? You know what I want,” he added, with irritation, ”as well as I do.”
”I shall be happy to learn,” the astrologer answered politely.
”Give it me without more words, and let me go!”
The astrologer raised his eyebrows. ”Alas! there is a limit to omniscience,” he said, shaking his head gently. ”It is true we keep it in stock--to frighten children. But it does not help me at present, M. de Vidoche.”
M. de Vidoche looked at him with an evil scowl. ”I see; you want me to commit myself,” he muttered. The perspiration stood on his forehead, and his voice was husky with rage or some other emotion. ”I was a fool to come here,” he continued. ”If you must have it, I want to kill a cat; and I want something to give to it.”
The astrologer laughed silently. ”The mountain was in labour, and lo! a cat!” he said, in a tone of amus.e.m.e.nt. ”And lo! a cat! Well, in that case I am afraid you have come to the wrong place, M. de Vidoche. I don't kill cats. There is no risk in it, you see,” he continued, looking fixedly at his companion, ”and no profit. n.o.body cares about a cat. The first herbalist you come to will give you what you want for a few sous. Even if the creature turns black within the hour, and its mouth goes to the nape of its neck,” he went on, with a horrid smile, ”as Madame de Beaufort's did--cui malo?--no one is a penny the worse. But if it were a question of---- I think I saw monsieur riding in company with Mademoiselle de Farincourt to-day?”
M. de Vidoche, who had been contemplating his tormentor with eyes of rage and horror, started at the unexpected question. ”Well,” he muttered, ”and what if I was?”
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