A Modern Aladdin

But that struggle lasted only for a moment. The next, Gaspard had drawn his black bag over her head, as Oliver had seen him do once before. Then the struggle instantly ceased, and she stood silent, immovable. Gaspard picked her up, flung her over his shoulder, turned, and the next moment had vanished out of the narrow range of Oliver's outlook, who, however, still remained with his eye glued to the key-hole.

Suddenly an object intervened; it was the back of the master's dressing-gown. Oliver could see nothing but just that little circle of cashmere cloth; the master was not four feet away from him. The cashmere cloth was innocent enough, but the sight of it filled Oliver again with that blind, ungovernable rage. He straightened himself from his observations at the key-hole. But as he did so his elbow struck against the partition alongside of him. He heard a rustle, and knew as well as though he had seen it that his master had turned quickly.

"What is that?" said the Count de St. Germaine's voice, sharply.

Oliver knew that he was discovered, and thereupon his blind rage broke through all restraints of reason and caution. "It is I!" he roared; and flinging wide the door of the wardrobe, he sprang like a cat at the throat of the other. As he sprang he clutched, and as he clutched he felt his fingers instinctively close not only around the soft folds of the cravat, but also around the links of a chain beneath.

The master went staggering back at the unexpected attack, and as he did so his slipper heel caught in the edge of the rug behind him, and he fell. But as he fell he shouted aloud, "Gaspard! Help!"

It was all over in an instant. The master lay prostrate on the floor, and as Oliver staggered back from the recoil of the attack, he found in his clutched hand a lace cravat and the chain, which had parted from the Count de St. Germaine's neck with a sharp snap. Something hung by the chain. It was a little silver case, thicker than, but about half as long, as a snuffbox.

There was a momentary pause as Oliver stood glaring at the master, still unconsciously clutching the cravat and the chain in his hand. The other had raised himself, and was now staring back at Oliver with wild, dilated eyes, and a face haggard and white as death. The next instant he sprang to his feet.

"My talisman!" he shrieked. "Give it to me!" and he raised his quivering fist in the air as though he would strike Oliver with it.

At the same instant a shrill, exultant voice sounded at the door: "Keep it, Monsieur Oliver, keep it! Do not give it to him! It is his life!"

It was Gaspard who spoke. And as Oliver turned his dazed eyes, he saw the clever servant standing in the door-way, hopping up and down, grinning, wagging his head, and waving his bony, sinewy hands madly hither and thither.

Oliver was stupefied with the tempest of passions that raged in and about him. The master might have taken what he chose, and he could not have moved to resist him. But this the master did not do. He gave a shrill, piping, despairing cry, and the next moment made a rush for the door, his cashmere dressing-gown flying behind him like brilliant wings. He flung Gaspard aside, and the next instant Oliver heard his pattering feet flying up the stairs.

"What does it all mean?" said Oliver, stupidly.

"What does it mean?" cried Gaspard. "Are you a fool? Open the box! open the box!"

Oliver mechanically obeyed him.

Within was a little roll of soft linen, yellow with age. He unrolled it, and within that again found a little crystal ball about the size of a dove's egg. He could see that it contained what appeared to be a dull, phosphorescent mass that, as he held it in his hand, seemed to pulse and throb in the light of the candle; now glowing with a bluish light, now fading away to a dull, milky opalescence.

Again, for the third time, Gaspard's snarling voice broke on his ear. "Oh, thou fool! See him stand like a lump! Pig! Do you not know that the master is busy with his books? A moment more and all is lost! Crush that ball, or you are a dead man!"

His words spurred Oliver to sudden action. He raised the globe high in the air, and flung it upon the floor with all his force. It burst with a flash of light and a report like a pistol, and instantly the air was filled with a pungent, reddish vapor.

The next instant, as the thunder follows the flash of lightning, there came a dull, heavy rumbling, as from the cellar, and the floor swayed beneath Oliver's feet, as though the house were toppling. He looked around; the door-way at which Gaspard had stood was empty; the clever servant was gone.

Then suddenly a confusion of sounds broke upon the stillness of the house: struggles and scuffles, snarling of voices, and squeaking as though of rats, the rattle and crash of furniture pushed about, thumping and banging as of people wrestling and falling against the doors. The next instant there was a sound of a heavy fall, a shrill, long-drawn, quavering scream, and then the lull of dead silence.

Oliver stood like a statue, listening, as though he had been turned to stone. He heard a door open, and then the sound of footsteps, and a strange clacking and clattering upon the stairs without; a heavy panting and breathing. Oliver ran to the door and looked up the stairs. Gaspard was coming down out of the black gloom above. Over his shoulders he carried something limp, like an empty skin or a bundle of clothes tied together. Part of what he carried he dragged clattering down the steps behind him; another part, a round lump the size of a man's head, hung down over his shoulder, wagging from side to side. The next moment the clever servant had come into the square of light from the open door-way of the room. That light fell full upon the round lump that hung wagging from his shoulder, and in the one instant of passing, Oliver saw a dreadful, a hideous face, ashy-white, and with eyes rolled, one upward and one downward, so that only a rim of the pupils showed. The jaws gaped and clapped as the head wagged from side to side. It was the face of the Count de St. Germaine.

Oliver stood spellbound, horrified, watching Gaspard as he descended the steep flight of steps, bearing that ghastly burden. As the clever servant passed under the dull light of the lamp below he turned his head and looked up. His mouth gaped wide with impish, noiseless laughter; he thrust his tongue into his cheek, and with an ugly leer and wink of one of his black, bead-like eyes, he passed by and down the steps beyond, the feet of the figure clicking from step to step behind him.

Oliver watched him until he reached the bottom of the steps and passed out from the house into the night beyond; there was the bang of a closing door, and then dead silence.

The next moment Oliver was at the door of the room wherein Céleste was confined. "Céleste!" he screamed, "for God's sake, come! Leave this awful place!"

"What is it?" answered Céleste from within. "Am I then saved?"

"Yes," cried Oliver, in the same shrill voice, "you are saved! But come! come!"

"But the door," said Céleste. "It is locked, Oliver."

"Ah, peste! I had forgotten. Stand away from it." As he spoke, he rushed against the door, flinging himself bodily upon it. It shook, but did not open. Again he dashed himself against it, and this time with better success. The lock snapped, and as it flew open inward Oliver plunged headlong into the room beyond.

Céleste stood, white and terrified, in the middle of the floor. "But am I indeed saved?" said she. "Where, then, is Monsieur de St. Germaine?"

"Do not ask me, Céleste," cried Oliver, hoarsely. "Come!"

As they passed through the room beyond, Céleste looked up into his face.

"What is it?" she cried. "What has happened, Oliver? Tell me."

But Oliver could not answer; he only shook his head.

Upon the landing without, Céleste suddenly stopped and laid her hand upon his arm. "Hark!" said she. "What is that?"

Oliver listened breathlessly. A dull, monotonous sobbing sounded through the house. It came from the apartment above.

"Oh, Oliver!" cried Céleste, "go and see what it is."

Oliver shook his head. "I cannot go," said he, huskily. "I am afraid. You do not know, Céleste, what an awful place this is! If you had seen what I have just beheld – "

"But you must go," said Céleste; "perhaps it is another in trouble like myself. I will wait for you here, Oliver; I am not afraid."

Oliver could not resist such an appeal; he turned, and began heavily ascending the stairs to the floor above. A door at a little distance stood ajar; it was thence that the monotonous sounds came. He advanced hesitatingly towards it, and reaching out his hand, pushed it, and it gaped slowly open upon the room beyond. Oliver only looked within for a moment, and then turned and walked stupidly away, but what he saw in that one glance was impressed upon his mind in an image never to be erased.

Tables and chairs were overturned; books lay torn and scattered upon the floor. In the middle of the room sat the woman whom he had first seen in the moonlit street at Flourens, and her pale, vacant eyes were fixed blankly upon him. Her white lips were slightly parted, but there was never a twitch upon the face that uttered those monotonous sobs that sounded dully through the silence.

Upon the floor lay stretched, bruised, battered, and bleeding, the withered, shrunken figure of an aged man, his limbs a mass of dried skin and bones. The yellow, parchment-like skin was stretched over his head and his face so tightly that it seemed as though it would crack. The shadow of death brooded upon him as he gazed with filmy, sightless eyes into the dark hollow of eternity that lay beyond. His breast, for a long time motionless, now and then heaved convulsively with the laboring breath. Such was the vision that Oliver saw in that one glance. Then he turned and walked away.

"Who was it, Oliver?" said Céleste.

Oliver answered never a word, but taking her by the hand, led her forcibly down the stairs and out of the house.