The sky is the limit
ISBN: 9788893452687
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Table of contents
Introduction
My visitor
The years roll by
The sherd of amenartas
The squall
The head of Ethiopian
An early Christian Ceremony
Ustane sings
The feast and after!
A little foot
Speculations
The plain of KÔR
"She"
AYESHA Unveils
A soul in hell
AYESHA gives Judgment
The Tombs of KÔR
The balance turns
Go, woman!
Give me a black goat!
Triumph!
The dead and living meet
Job has a presentiment
The Temple of Truth
Walking the plank
The spirit of life
What we saw
We leap
Over the mountain
IN EARTH AND SKIE AND SEA
STRANGE THYNGS THER BE
[Doggerel couplet from the Sherd of Amenartas]
I inscribe this history to
ANDREW LANG
in token of personal regard
and of
my sincere admiration
for his learning and his works
Introduction
In giving to the world the record
of what, looked at as an adventure only, is I suppose one of the
most wonderful and mysterious experiences ever undergone by mortal
men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact connection
with it is. And so I may as well say at once that I am not the
narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history, and
then go on to tell how it found its way into my hands.
Some years ago I, the editor
was stopping with a
friend, “vir doctissimus et amicus neus,” at a certain University,
which for the purposes of this history we will call Cambridge, and
was one day much struck with the appearance of two persons whom I
saw going arm-in-arm down the street. One of these gentlemen was I
think, without exception, the handsomest young fellow I have ever
seen. He was very tall, very broad, and had a look of power and a
grace of bearing that seemed as native to him as it is to a wild
stag. In addition his face was almost without flaw—a good face as
well as a beautiful one, and when he lifted his hat, which he did
just then to a passing lady, I saw that his head was covered with
little golden curls growing close to the scalp.
“Good gracious!” I said to my friend, with whom I was walking,
“why, that fellow looks like a statue of Apollo come to life.
What a splendid man he is!”
“Yes,” he answered, “he is the handsomest man in the University,
and one of the nicest too. They call him ‘the Greek god’; but look
at the other one, he’s Vincey’s (that’s the god’s name) guardian,
and supposed to be full of every kind of information. They call him
‘Charon.’” I looked, and found the older man quite as interesting
in his way as the glorified specimen of humanity at his side. He
appeared to be about forty years of age, and was I think as ugly as
his companion was handsome. To begin with, he was shortish, rather
bow-legged, very deep chested, and with unusually long arms. He had
dark hair and small eyes, and the hair grew right down on his
forehead, and his whiskers grew right up to his hair, so that there
was uncommonly little of his countenance to be seen. Altogether he
reminded me forcibly of a gorilla, and yet there was something very
pleasing and genial about the man’s eye. I remember saying that I
should like to know him.
“All right,” answered my friend, “nothing easier. I know
Vincey; I’ll introduce you,” and he did, and for some minutes we
stood chatting—about the Zulu people, I think, for I had just
returned from the Cape at the time.
Presently, however, a stoutish lady, whose name I do not
remember, came along the pavement, accompanied by a pretty
fair-haired girl, and these two Mr. Vincey, who clearly knew them
well, at once joined, walking off in their company. I remember
being rather amused because of the change in the expression of the
elder man, whose name I discovered was Holly, when he saw the
ladies advancing. He suddenly stopped short in his talk, cast a
reproachful look at his companion, and, with an abrupt nod to
myself, turned and marched off alone across the street. I heard
afterwards that he was popularly supposed to be as much afraid of a
woman as most people are of a mad dog, which accounted for his
precipitate retreat. I cannot say, however, that young Vincey
showed much aversion to feminine society on this occasion. Indeed I
remember laughing, and remarking to my friend at the time that he
was not the sort of man whom it would be desirable to introduce to
the lady one was going to marry, since it was exceedingly probable
that the acquaintance would end in a transfer of her affections. He
was altogether too good-looking, and, what is more, he had none of
that consciousness and conceit about him which usually afflicts
handsome men, and makes them deservedly disliked by their fellows.
That same evening my visit came to an end, and this was the
last I saw or heard of “Charon” and “the Greek god” for many a long
day. Indeed, I have never seen either of them from that hour to
this, and do not think it probable that I shall. But a month ago I
received a letter and two packets, one of manuscript, and on
opening the first found that it was signed by “Horace Holly,” a
name that at the moment was not familiar to me. It ran as follows:—
“—— College, Cambridge, May 1,
18—
“
My dear Sir,
—You will be surprised, considering the very slight nature of
our acquaintance, to get a letter from me. Indeed, I think I had
better begin by reminding you that we once met, now some five years
ago, when I and my ward Leo Vincey were introduced to you in the
street at Cambridge. To be brief and come to my business. I have
recently read with much interest a book of yours describing a
Central African adventure. I take it that this book is partly true,
and partly an effort of the imagination. However this may be, it
has given me an idea. It happens, how you will see in the
accompanying manuscript (which together with the Scarab, the ‘Royal
Son of the Sun,’ and the original sherd, I am sending to you by
hand), that my ward, or rather my adopted son Leo Vincey and myself
have recently passed through a real African adventure, of a nature
so much more marvellous than the one which you describe, that to
tell the truth I am almost ashamed to submit it to you lest you
should disbelieve my tale. You will see it stated in this
manuscript that I, or rather we, had made up our minds not to make
this history public during our joint lives. Nor should we alter our
determination were it not for a circumstance which has recently
arisen. We are for reasons that, after perusing this manuscript,
you may be able to guess, going away again this time to Central
Asia where, if anywhere upon this earth, wisdom is to be found, and
we anticipate that our sojourn there will be a long one. Possibly
we shall not return. Under these altered conditions it has become a
question whether we are justified in withholding from the world an
account of a phenomenon which we believe to be of unparalleled
interest, merely because our private life is involved, or because
we are afraid of ridicule and doubt being cast upon our statements.
I hold one view about this matter, and Leo holds another, and
finally, after much discussion, we have come to a compromise,
namely, to send the history to you, giving you full leave to
publish it if you think fit, the only stipulation being that you
shall disguise our real names, and as much concerning our personal
identity as is consistent with the maintenance of the bona fides of
the narrative.
“And now what am I to say further? I really do not know beyond once
more repeating that everything is described in the accompanying
manuscript exactly as it happened. As regards She herself I have
nothing to add. Day by day we gave greater occasion to regret that
we did not better avail ourselves of our opportunities to obtain
more information from that marvellous woman. Who was she? How did
she first come to the Caves of Kôr, and what was her real religion?
We never ascertained, and now, alas! we never shall, at least not
yet. These and many other questions arise in my mind, but what is
the good of asking them now?
“Will you undertake the task? We give you complete freedom, and as
a reward you will, we believe, have the credit of presenting to the
world the most wonderful history, as distinguished from romance,
that its records can show. Read the manuscript (which I have copied
out fairly for your benefit), and let me know.
“Believe me, very truly yours, “L. Horace Holly.[*]
“P.S.—Of course, if any profit results from the sale of the writing
should you care to undertake its publication, you can do what you
like with it, but if there is a loss I will leave instructions with
my lawyers, Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, to meet it. We entrust the
sherd, the scarab, and the parchments to your keeping, till such
time as we demand them back again. —L. H. H.”
[*] This name is varied throughout in accordance with the
writer’s request.—Editor.
This letter, as may be imagined, astonished me considerably,
but when I came to look at the MS., which the pressure of other
work prevented me from doing for a fortnight, I was still more
astonished, as I think the reader will be also, and at once made up
my mind to press on with the matter. I wrote to this effect to Mr.
Holly, but a week afterwards received a letter from that
gentleman’s lawyers, returning my own, with the information that
their client and Mr. Leo Vincey had already left this country for
Thibet, and they did not at present know their address.
Well, that is all I have to say. Of the history itself the reader
must judge. I give it him, with the exception of a very few
alterations, made with the object of concealing the identity of the
actors from the general public, exactly as it came to me.
Personally I have made up my mind to refrain from comments. At
first I was inclined to believe that this history of a woman on
whom, clothed in the majesty of her almost endless years, the
shadow of Eternity itself lay like the dark wing of Night, was some
gigantic allegory of which I could not catch the meaning. Then I
thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the possible
results of practical immortality, informing the substance of a
mortal who yet drew her strength from Earth, and in whose human
bosom passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world
around her the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat
unceasingly. But as I went on I abandoned that idea also. To me the
story seems to bear the stamp of truth upon its face. Its
explanation I must leave to others, and with this slight preface,
which circumstances make necessary, I introduce the world to Ayesha
and the Caves of Kôr.—The Editor.
P.S.—There is on consideration one circumstance that, after a
reperusal of this history, struck me with so much force that I
cannot resist calling the attention of the reader to it. He will
observe that so far as we are made acquainted with him there
appears to be nothing in the character of Leo Vincey which in the
opinion of most people would have been likely to attract an
intellect so powerful as that of Ayesha. He is not even, at any
rate to my view, particularly interesting. Indeed, one might
imagine that Mr. Holly would under ordinary circumstances have
easily outstripped him in the favour of She. Can it be that
extremes meet, and that the very excess and splendour of her mind
led her by means of some strange physical reaction to worship at
the shrine of matter? Was that ancient Kallikrates nothing but a
splendid animal loved for his hereditary Greek beauty? Or is the
true explanation what I believe it to be—namely, that Ayesha,
seeing further than we can see, perceived the germ and smouldering
spark of greatness which lay hid within her lover’s soul, and well
knew that under the influence of her gift of life, watered by her
wisdom, and shone upon with the sunshine of her presence, it would
bloom like a flower and flash out like a star, filling the world
with light and fragrance?
Here also I am not able to answer, but must leave the reader to
form his own judgment on the facts before him, as detailed by Mr.
Holly in the following pages.
Longmans, Green, and Co.,
London
My visitor
There are some events of which
each circumstance and surrounding detail seems to be graven on the
memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with
the scene that I am about to describe. It rises as clearly before
my mind at this moment as though it had happened but yesterday.
It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I,
Ludwig Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at
Cambridge, grinding away at some mathematical work, I forget what.
I was to go up for my fellowship within a week, and was expected by
my tutor and my college generally to distinguish myself. At last,
wearied out, I flung my book down, and, going to the mantelpiece,
took down a pipe and filled it. There was a candle burning on the
mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass at the back of it; and as I
was in the act of lighting the pipe I caught sight of my own
countenance in the glass, and paused to reflect. The lighted match
burnt away till it scorched my fingers, forcing me to drop it; but
still I stood and stared at myself in the glass, and reflected.
“Well,” I said aloud, at last, “it is to be hoped that I shall be
able to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall
certainly never do anything by the help of the outside.”
This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being
slightly obscure, but I was in reality alluding to my physical
deficiencies. Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with
some share of the comeliness of youth, but to me even this was
denied. Short, thick-set, and deep-chested almost to deformity,
with long sinewy arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low
brow half overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, like a deserted
clearing on which the forest had once more begun to encroach; such
was my appearance nearly a quarter of a century ago, and such, with
some modification, it is to this day. Like Cain, I was
branded—branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness, as I
was gifted by Nature with iron and abnormal strength and
considerable intellectual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce
young men of my College, though they were proud enough of my feats
of endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen
walking with me. Was it wonderful that I was misanthropic and
sullen? Was it wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had
no friends—at least, only one? I was set apart by Nature to live
alone, and draw comfort from her breast, and hers only. Women hated
the sight of me. Only a week before I had heard one call me a
“monster” when she thought I was out of hearing, and say that I had
converted her to the monkey theory. Once, indeed, a woman pretended
to care for me, and I lavished all the pent-up affection of my
nature upon her. Then money that was to have come to me went
elsewhere, and she discarded me. I pleaded with her as I have never
pleaded with any living creature before or since, for I was caught
by her sweet face, and loved her; and in the end by way of answer
she took me to the glass, and stood side by side with me, and
looked into it.
“Now,” she said, “if I am Beauty, who are you?” That was when I was
only twenty.
And so I stood and stared, and felt a sort of grim satisfaction in
the sense of my own loneliness; for I had neither father, nor
mother, nor brother; and as I did so there came a knock at my door.
I listened before I went to open it, for it was nearly twelve
o’clock at night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger. I had
but one friend in the College, or, indeed, in the world—perhaps it
was he.
Just then the person outside the door coughed, and I hastened to
open it, for I knew the cough.
A tall man of about thirty, with the remains of great personal
beauty, came hurrying in, staggering beneath the weight of a
massive iron box which he carried by a handle with his right hand.
He placed the box upon the table, and then fell into an awful fit
of coughing. He coughed and coughed till his face became quite
purple, and at last he sank into a chair and began to spit up
blood. I poured out some whisky into a tumbler, and gave it to him.
He drank it, and seemed better; though his better was very bad
indeed.
“Why did you keep me standing there in the cold?” he asked
pettishly. “You know the draughts are death to me.”
“I did not know who it was,” I answered. “You are a late visitor.”
“Yes; and I verily believe it is my last visit,” he answered, with
a ghastly attempt at a smile. “I am done for, Holly. I am done for.
I do not believe that I shall see to-morrow.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “Let me go for a doctor.”
He waved me back imperiously with his hand. “It is sober sense; but
I want no doctors. I have studied medicine and I know all about it.
No doctors can help me. My last hour has come! For a year past I
have only lived by a miracle. Now listen to me as you have never
listened to anybody before; for you will not have the opportunity
of getting me to repeat my words. We have been friends for two
years; now tell me how much do you know about me?”
“I know that you are rich, and have had a fancy to come to College
long after the age that most men leave it. I know that you have
been married, and that your wife died; and that you have been the
best, indeed almost the only friend I ever had.”
“Did you know that I have a son?”
“No.”
“I have. He is five years old. He cost me his mother’s life, and I
have never been able to bear to look upon his face in consequence.
Holly, if you will accept the trust, I am going to leave you that
boy’s sole guardian.”
I sprang almost out of my chair. “Me!” I said.
“Yes, you. I have not studied you for two years for nothing. I have
known for some time that I could not last, and since I realised the
fact I have been searching for some one to whom I could confide the
boy and this,” and he tapped the iron box. “You are the man, Holly;
for, like a rugged tree, you are hard and sound at core. Listen;
the boy will be the only representative of one of the most ancient
families in the world, that is, so far as families can be traced.
You will laugh at me when I say it, but one day it will be proved
to you beyond a doubt, that my sixty-fifth or sixty-sixth lineal
ancestor was an Egyptian priest of Isis, though he was himself of
Grecian extraction, and was called Kallikrates.[*] His father was
one of the Greek mercenaries raised by Hak-Hor, a Mendesian Pharaoh
of the twenty-ninth dynasty, and his grandfather or
great-grandfather, I believe, was that very Kallikrates mentioned
by Herodotus.
[+] In or about the year 339 before Christ, just at the time
of the final fall of the Pharaohs, this Kallikrates (the priest)
broke his vows of celibacy and fled from Egypt with a Princess of
Royal blood who had fallen in love with him, and was finally
wrecked upon the coast of Africa, somewhere, as I believe, in the
neighbourhood of where Delagoa Bay now is, or rather to the north
of it, he and his wife being saved, and all the remainder of their
company destroyed in one way or another. Here they endured great
hardships, but were at last entertained by the mighty Queen of a
savage people, a white woman of peculiar loveliness, who, under
circumstances which I cannot enter into, but which you will one day
learn, if you live, from the contents of the box, finally murdered
my ancestor Kallikrates. His wife, however, escaped, how, I know
not, to Athens, bearing a child with her, whom she named
Tisisthenes, or the Mighty Avenger. Five hundred years or more
afterwards, the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of
which no trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of
preserving the idea of vengeance which we find set out in the name
of Tisisthenes, they appear to have pretty regularly assumed the
cognomen of Vindex, or Avenger. Here, too, they remained for
another five centuries or more, till about 770 A.D., when
Charlemagne invaded Lombardy, where they were then settled, whereon
the head of the family seems to have attached himself to the great
Emperor, and to have returned with him across the Alps, and finally
to have settled in Brittany. Eight generations later his lineal
representative crossed to England in the reign of Edward the
Confessor, and in the time of William the Conqueror was advanced to
great honour and power. From that time to the present day I can
trace my descent without a break. Not that the Vinceys—for that was
the final corruption of the name after its bearers took root in
English soil—have been particularly distinguished—they never came
much to the fore. Sometimes they were soldiers, sometimes
merchants, but on the whole they have preserved a dead level of
respectability, and a still deader level of mediocrity. From the
time of Charles II. till the beginning of the present century they
were merchants. About 1790 by grandfather made a considerable
fortune out of brewing, and retired. In 1821 he died, and my father
succeeded him, and dissipated most of the money. Ten years ago he
died also, leaving me a net income of about two thousand a year.
Then it was that I undertook an expedition in connection with
that,” and he pointed to the iron chest, “which ended disastrously
enough. On my way back I travelled in the South of Europe, and
finally reached Athens. There I met my beloved wife, who might well
also have been called the ‘Beautiful,’ like my old Greek ancestor.
There I married her, and there, a year afterwards, when my boy was
born, she died.”
[*]
The Strong and Beautiful, or, more accurately, the
Beautiful in strength.
[+] The Kallikrates here referred to by my friend was a
Spartan, spoken of by Herodotus (Herod. ix. 72) as being
remarkable for his beauty. He fell at the glorious battle of
Platæa (September 22, B.C. 479), when the Lacedæmonians
and Athenians under Pausanias routed the Persians, putting
nearly 300,000 of them to the sword.
The following is a translation of the passage,
“
For Kallikrates died out of the battle, he came to the army the
most beautiful man of the Greeks of that day—not only of the
Lacedæmonians themselves, but of the other Greeks also. He when
Pausanias was sacrificing was wounded in the side by an arrow; and
then they fought, but on being carried off he regretted his death,
and said to Arimnestus, a Platæan, that he did not grieve at dying
for Greece, but at not having struck a blow, or, although he
desired so to do, performed any deed worthy of himself.”
This Kallikrates, who appears to have been as brave as he was
beautiful, is subsequently mentioned by Herodotus as having been
buried among the ἰρένες‚ (young commanders), apart from the other
Spartans and the Helots.
—L. H. H.
He paused a while, his head sunk upon his hand, and then
continued—
“My marriage had diverted me from a project which I cannot enter
into now. I have no time, Holly—I have no time! One day, if you
accept my trust, you will learn all about it. After my wife’s death
I turned my mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at
least, I conceived that it was necessary, that I should attain to a
perfect knowledge of Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to
facilitate my studies that I came here. Very soon, however, my
disease developed itself, and now there is an end of me.” And as
though to emphasise his words he burst into another terrible fit of
coughing.
I gave him some more whisky, and after resting he went on—
“I have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never
could bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and
handsome child. In this envelope,” and he produced a letter from
his pocket addressed to myself, “I have jotted down the course I
wish followed in the boy’s education. It is a somewhat peculiar
one. At any rate, I could not entrust it to a stranger. Once more,
will you undertake it?”
“I must first know what I am to undertake,” I answered.
“You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till
he is twenty-five years of age—not to send him to school, remember.
On his twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you
will then, with the keys that I give you now” (and he placed them
on the table) “open the iron box, and let him see and read the
contents, and say whether or no he is willing to undertake the
quest. There is no obligation on him to do so. Now, as regards
terms. My present income is two thousand two hundred a year. Half
of that income I have secured to you by will for life, contingently
on your undertaking the guardianship—that is, one thousand a year
remuneration to yourself, for you will have to give up your life to
it, and one hundred a year to pay for the board of the boy. The
rest is to accumulate till Leo is twenty-five, so that there may be
a sum in hand should he wish to undertake the quest of which I
spoke.”
“And suppose I were to die?” I asked.
“Then the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance.
Only be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your
will. Listen, Holly, don’t refuse me. Believe me, this is to your
advantage. You are not fit to mix with the world—it would only
embitter you. In a few weeks you will become a Fellow of your
College, and the income that you will derive from that combined
with what I have left you will enable you to live a life of learned
leisure, alternated with the sport of which you are so fond, such
as will exactly suit you.”
He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated. The
charge seemed so very strange.
“For my sake, Holly. We have been good friends, and I have no time
to make other arrangements.”
“Very well,” I said, “I will do it, provided there is nothing in
this paper to make me change my mind,” and I touched the envelope
he had put upon the table by the keys.
“Thank you, Holly, thank you. There is nothing at all. Swear to me
by God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my
directions to the letter.”
“I swear it,” I answered solemnly.
“Very well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the
account of your oath, for though I am dead and forgotten, yet I
shall live. There is no such thing as death, Holly, only a change,
and, as you may perhaps learn in time to come, I believe that even
that change could under certain circumstances be indefinitely
postponed,” and again he broke into one of his dreadful fits of
coughing.
“There,” he said, “I must go, you have the chest, and my will will
be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child
will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I
know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven, I
will haunt you.”
I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak.
He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It
had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. “Food for
the worms,” he said. “Curious to think that in a few hours I shall
be stiff and cold—the journey done, the little game played out. Ah
me, Holly! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one
is in love—at least, mine has not been; but the boy Leo’s may be if
he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend!” and with a
sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me
on the forehead, and then turned to go.
“Look here, Vincey,” I said, “if you are as ill as you think, you
had better let me fetch a doctor.”
“No, no,” he said earnestly. “Promise me that you won’t. I am going
to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone.”
“I don’t believe that you are going to do anything of the sort,” I
answered. He smiled, and, with the word “Remember” on his lips, was
gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I
had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I
gave it up and began to think that Vincey must have been drinking.
I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed
impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to
know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been
so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to
walk, and carry a heavy iron box with him. The whole story, on
reflection, seemed to me utterly incredible, for I was not then old
enough to be aware how many things happen in this world that the
common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as
to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only
recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five
years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant? No.
Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately?
No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than
three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide
the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune,
to a college friend? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either
drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean? and what was in the
sealed iron chest?
The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at
last I could stand it no longer, and determined to sleep over it.
So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey
had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a
large portmanteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep.
As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I
was awakened by somebody calling me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes;
it was broad daylight—eight o’clock, in fact.
“Why, what is the matter with you, John?” I asked of the gyp who
waited on Vincey and myself. “You look as though you had seen a
ghost!”
“Yes, sir, and so I have,” he answered, “leastways I’ve seen a
corpse, which is worse. I’ve been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual,
and there he lies stark and dead!”
The years roll by
As might be expected, poor
Vincey’s sudden death created a great stir in the College; but, as
he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor’s
certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not so
particular about inquests in those days as they are now; indeed,
they were generally disliked, because of the scandal. Under all
these circumstances, being asked no questions, I did not feel
called upon to volunteer any information about our interview on the
night of Vincey’s decease, beyond saying that he had come into my
rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a
lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend’s remains
to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects,
except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my
keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and,
indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up
for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the
funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was
over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with
a happy consciousness that I had got through it very fairly.
Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had
crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned
to the events of the night of poor Vincey’s death, and again I
asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear
anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my
duty to do with the curious iron chest. I sat there and thought and
thought till I began to grow quite disturbed over the whole
occurrence: the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so
shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and
which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than
this. Had the man committed suicide? It looked like it. And what
was the quest of which he spoke? The circumstances were uncanny, so
much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed
at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I
grew afraid, and began to wish I had nothing to do with them. How
much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards!
As I sat and thought, there came a knock at the door, and a letter,
in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance
that it was a lawyer’s letter, and an instinct told me that it was
connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs
thus:—
“Sir,—Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th
instant in —— College, Cambridge, has left behind him a Will, of
which you will please find copy enclosed and of which we are the
executors. Under this Will you will perceive that you take a
life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey’s property, now
invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship
of his only son, Leo Vincey, at present an infant, aged five. Had
we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obedience to
Mr. Vincey’s clear and precise instructions, both personal and
written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good
reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its
provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have
bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in
order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it,
either by contesting the capacity of the testator or otherwise, to
safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the
testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen,
and that he has absolutely no relations living to whom he could
have confided the guardianship of the child, we do not feel
justified in taking this course.
“Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as regards the
delivery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the
dividends due to you,
“We remain, Sir, faithfully yours,
“Geoffrey and Jordan.
“Horace L. Holly, Esq.”
I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which
appeared, from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on
the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover,
however, it exactly bore out what my friend Vincey had told me on
the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the
boy. Suddenly I remembered the letter which Vincey had left with
the chest. I fetched and opened it. It only contained such
directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on
Leo’s twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outlines of the
boy’s education, which was to include Greek, the higher
Mathematics, and Arabic. At the end there was a postscript to the
effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which,
however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the
chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did
not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I
to pass them on to a stranger.
As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and
certainly raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the
task I had promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one
course open to me—namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan,
and express my acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be
willing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days’ time. This
done I went to the authorities of my college, and, having told them
as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very
much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to
stretch a point, and, in the event of my having obtained a
fellowship, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have
the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted
on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took
lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in
obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates.
The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a
determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the
child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to
do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a
suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring
a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in
a hunting-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of
seventeen and well-accustomed to the ways of children, and
professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master
Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and
with my own hands deposited it at my banker’s, I bought some books
upon the health and management of children and read them, first to
myself, and then aloud to Job—that was the young man’s name—and
waited.
At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who
wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was.
Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before
or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead was broad, and his face,
even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched
or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which
was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head.
He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left
him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with
the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his
fist screwed over one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I
was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce
him to come to me, while Job, in the corner, was making a sort of
clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or
from the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing
effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a
wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a
way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes,
and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out both his little arms
and ran to me.
“I like you,” he said: “you is ugly, but you is good.”
Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large slices of bread and
butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on
to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works that we
had read, and forbade it.
In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellowship)
the boy became the favourite of the whole College—where, all orders
and regulations to the contrary notwithstanding, he was continually
in and out—a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules
were relaxed. The offerings made at his shrine were simply without
number, and I had serious difference of opinion with one old
resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the
crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child.
And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit of sickness
had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled
old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there
feeding him upon unlimited quantities of brandy-balls, and making
him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to
be ashamed of himself, “at his age, too, when he might have been a
grandfather if he had done what was right,” by which Job understood
had got married, and thence arose the row.
But I have no space to dwell upon those delightful years, around
which memory still fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as
they passed we two grew dearer and yet more dear to each other. Few
sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep
and continuous affection that Leo bears to me.
The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, while
one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as he grew and
increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with
him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about
the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast
was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we
used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher’s
man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed
him, too—thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see,
till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered
him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but
I could not help it. Then when he was a little older the
undergraduates found fresh names for us. They called me Charon, and
Leo the Greek god! I will pass over my own appellation with the
humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so
as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness.
Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful
Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him in looks, or anybody so
absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was brilliant
and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness
necessary for that result. We followed out his father’s
instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the
whole the results, especially in the matters of Greek and Arabic,
were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to
teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I
did—almost as well as the professor who instructed us both. I
always was a great sportsman—it is my one passion—and every autumn
we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland,
sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but
even in this he learnt to excel me.
When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him
at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree—a
respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I,
for the first time, told him something of his own story, and of the
mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it,
and of course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be
gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I
suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar; and this he
did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his
dinners.
I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young
woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would
insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which
I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at
the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well; I cannot say more
than that.
And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth
birthday, at which date this strange and, in some ways, awful
history really begins.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!