Vintage Vampire Stories (15 page)

“That man,” exclaimed the Colonel in German, pointing with his stick to where the Moldavian lay sprawling on his knees, hastily readjusting the muffler around his hideous face. “tried to assault me, and I defended myself. Look after him, but beware of him. He is a wild beast, not a man!” The men looked at the Colonel, whom they knew to be some important grandee held in great honour by their Captain, and then at the shabby mass of black clothes, sprawling on the deck, and then at each other, and marveled greatly, open-mouthed, not knowing what to say or think or do.

“I shall see the Captain about this to-morrow morning,” continued Rowan. “But in the meantime, as I say, look after this—this—man, but beware of him!” and so speaking, he turned and strode away in the direction of his cabin.

Just before reaching the stairway he turned and looked back. There in the moonlight stood the man in black, gazing after him, the awful face hidden once more in the dirty muffler, which was now stained on one side with the blood which came trickling down from a wound on the brow.As he saw the Colonel turn, the man raised his clenched fist and shook it very slowly, solemnly, and deliberately—the gesture of a warning and of a curse—and the sailors, fearing further violence, closed around him. Then the Colonel turned and went his way to bed. The following morning Rowan of course made his faithful Adams (who, by the way, was never astonished at anything, having acquired through long residence in the East the stolidity of the Oriental) fully acquainted with the strange events of the preceding night, but charged him to say nothing to anybody.

“I have thought the matter over,” said the Colonel, “and have decided merely to tell the Captain that I had a few words with this man, and in a heated moment struck him, and then give Pellegrini his Excellency's address where we shall be for the next fortnight, so that if this man wants to communicate with me in any way, he can. Of course any question of a duel with such a brute is absurd, but I hope he won't attempt to assault me again to-day.”

“I'll keep a sharp look-out he doesn't, sir” said Adams.

But such precautions were unnecessary. Nothing more was seen of the Moldavian, who presumably was confined to his cabin by his wound, and the following morning at early dawn the Colonel and his servant left the steamer at Rustchuck and took the train to the Varna and the Black Sea, en route for the splendors of the Bosphorus.

‘Hippy' Rowan has arrived at Djavil Pacha's palace on the Bosphorus. Other guests staying with the Turkish millionaire include Lord Melrose (‘a well known gambler and breaker and taker of banks'), Emile Bertonneux (‘an amusing French newspaper man, of the Paris Oeil de Boeuf ') and Tony Jeratczesco (an international bon viveur, ‘fond of cards and racing, and with plenty of money to justify his interest in both these expensive forms of speculation'). Jeratczesco has invited the assembled company to join him at his ‘mysterious castle' (in the ‘Moldavian Karpaks'). They all agree, and Djavil arranges a spectacular picnic in the country just before their depature. The guests at this function include Leopold Maryx (‘the renowned specialist for nervous diseases, who had been summond from Vienna on purpose to see the Sultan'), ‘Lord, and especially Lady, Brentford, the champion political bore in petticoats', Leonard P. Beacon, a New York millionaire (‘vulgar beyond even the power of dynamite to purify') and Lord Malling (‘our delightful but impossible Ambassador'). The conversation turns to the subject of ‘evil spirits'.

Maryx was telling me about the Children of Judas,” remarked Hippy Rowan.

“The Children of Judas!” echoed Emile Bertonneux, the Parisian newspaper man, scenting a possible article à sensation—for it is, we suppose, hardly necessary to remind our readers that in so cosmopolitan a gathering the conversation was carried on in French—“Who are they? I had no idea Judas was a père de famille.”

“It's a Moldavian legend,” replied the great specialist. “They say the Children of Judas, lineal descendents of the arch traitor, are prowling about the world seeking to do harm, and that they kill you with a kiss.”

“But how do they get at you to kiss you?” gasped Mr Leonard P. Beacon, his thirst for information leading him to ignore the fact that his mouth was full of loup sauce homard.

“The legend is,” said Maryx, “that in the first instance they are here in every shape—men and women, young and old, but generally of extraordinary and surpassing ugliness, but are here merely to fill their hearts with envy, venom, and hatred, and to mark their prey. In order to really do harm, they have to sacrifice themselves to their hatred, go back to the infernal regions whence they came—but go back by the gate of suicide—report to the Chief of the Three Princes of Evil, get their diabolical commission from him, and then return to his world and do the deed. They can come back in any form they think the best adapted to attain their object, or that satisfy their hate: sometimes they come as a mad dog who bites you and gives you hydrophobia—that's one form of the kiss of Judas; sometimes as the breath of pestilence, cholera, or what not—that's another form of the kiss of Judas; sometimes in an attractive shape, and then the kiss is really as one of affection, though as fatal in its effect as the mad dog's bite or the pestilence. When it takes the form of a kiss of affection, however, there is always a mark on the poisoned body of the victim—the wound of the kiss. Last summer, when I was at Sinaia in attendance on the Queen, I saw the body of a peasant girl whose lover had given her the kiss of Judas, and there certainly was on her neck a mark like this:” and Maryx took up his fork and scratched on the tablecloth three X's,—thus, XXX. “Can you guess what that's supposed to signify?” inquired the great physician.

“Thirty,” exclaimed Lady Brentford.

“Of course,” replied Maryx,“thirty—the thirty pieces of silver, of course—the mark of the price of blood.”

“Vous êtes impayable, mon cher!” exclaimed Djavil, grinning. “Whenever you find it no longer pays to kill your patients you can always make money at the foires. Set Hippy Rowan to beat the drum at the door and you sit inside the van telling your wonderful blagues, and you'll make a fortune in no time.”

The great Professor paid no attention to these flippant remarks; he was, indeed, notwithstanding his marvelous intelligence and extraordinary science and experience and skill, at heart a very charlatan and mountebank in his love of a gaping crowd; and the interest he saw depicted on the faces of his listeners delighted him.

“Did you say that in the first instance these Children of Judas are supposed to be very ugly?” inquired Colonel Rowan, his thoughts reverting to the awful face of that man Isaac Lebedenko who had assaulted him on the boat. The incident had almost wholly passed away from his memory until then, though he had noted it down in his carefully-kept diary; and he had, by the way, long ago told himself that he must have been mistaken in what he thought that horrible muffler had disclosed to him; that such things could not be, and that he must have been deceived either by some trick of shadow, or by some prank on him by gout astride of his imagination.

“Yes,” replied Maryx, “so runs the legend. This physical ugliness betokens, of course, the malignant spirit within.At that stage they may be recognized and avoided, or better still, slain; for they only really become dangerous when their hatred has reached such a pitch that they are prompted to seek a voluntary death and re-incarnation in order to completely satisfy their malignancy; for it is by the gate of suicide alone that they can approach the Arch-Fiend to be fully commissioned and equipped to return to earth on their errand of destruction. So if they are killed in their first stage of development, and not allowed to commit suicide, they are extinguished.When they return fully armed with power from Hell, it is too late; they cannot be recognized, and are fatal; for they have at their command all the weapons and artillery of Satan, from the smile of a pretty woman to the breath of pestilence. This voluntary self-sacrifice of hate in order to more fully satisfy itself by a regeneration, this suicide on the reculer pour mieux sauter principle, is of course nothing but a parody of the Divine Sacrifice of Love on which the Christian religion is based ...”

When the repast was at length over, every one began strolling about the woods, and Happy Rowan, lighting a cigar, started for a ramble with his old friend Lord Malling. But they had not gone far when their host sent a servant after them to request his lordship to return and speak with him; and so, the Ambassador turning back, Hippy continued his saunter by himself, penetrating by degrees into a somewhat remote and secluded part of the forest, the voice and laugher of the other guests becoming gradually fainter and fainter as he strolled on.

Suddenly, from behind a tree, a man sprang out upon him, and a knife gleamed in the sunlight, swiftly descending upon his heart. Hippy, quick as lightning, leapt to one side, striking up as he did so with his heavy walking-stick at the would be assassin's arm, and with such force that he sent the knife flying out of the man's hand into the air; and then turning, he dealt the villain a blow on the side of the head which brought him to the ground as one dead. It was the Moldavian, Isaac Lebedenko. Hippy had recognised the eyes gleaming over the dirty-white muffler the moment the man sprang out upon him; and now, as he lay on the ground insensible, there could, of course, be no shadow of doubt about his identity, although he had so fallen, on one side, that the wrapper had not been disarranged from his face. We have said that, although enjoying the well-merited reputation of being the best-natured man in London, Dick Rowan had laid himself open to the reproach of having been most unduly harsh and severe in numerous wars in which he had been engaged; and this harshness, not to say cruelty, presumably ever latent in his nature, but which seemed only to be called to the surface under certain special conditions closely connected to peril and the excitement engendered thereby, now made itself apparent. The Moldavian had fallen on his side, and the shock of his fall had been so violent, while one hand lay palm upwards and half open on the trunk of a large fallen tree, the other hand, palm downwards, had been thrown upon its fellow. It was rather a peculiar position for the shock resulting from a fall to have thrown the hands into, and of course indicated that the blow had been so severe that the man had not been able to make any attempt to break his fall, but had sunk to the ground like a doll. Such, at least, was the way Rowan explained the matter as he stood over his prostrate enemy, wondering in his mind how he could possibly contrive to secure the violent would-be assassin until such time as he should be able to obtain assistance and have him handed over to the authorities for punishment; and just as he noticed the position of his hands his eyes caught the gleaming of the knife, which had fallen in the grass a little farther off. Hippy went to where it lay, and picked it up. It was a murderous-looking weapon indeed: broad, double-edged, and very sharp, though rather thick and not long; and fitted with a big round handle of lead, destined, of course, to lend terrible momentum to any blow struck by it. Rowan looked at the knife, and then at the hands of the Moldavian, lying in so diabolically tempting a position; and just then a quivering of the man's legs plainly indicated that he was recovering his senses. If it was to be done at all, there was evidently no time to be lost; so Rowan, taking the sharp instrument, and positioning it point downwards over the man's hands, which were already beginning to twitch with returning consciousness, and using his huge walking-stick as a hammer, with one powerful blow on the broad heavy handle of the knife, drove it through both the hands of the Moldavian and into the trunk of the tree up to the very hilt. A slight and almost inaudible groan came from behind the white wrapper—that was all; but Rowan could see that under the sting of the sudden pain the man had completely recovered consciousness, for the awful eyes, just visible above the muffler, were now open and fixed upon him.

“You miserable scoundrel!” exclaimed Rowan in German, his voice hoarse with anger, “You may think yourself lucky I didn't kill you like a dog when you lay there at my mercy. But I'll have you punished—never fear. Lie quiet there until I have you sent to prison.”

The man said nothing: his awful eyes simply looked at Rowan.

“I have been forced, as you see,” continued the Colonel, leisurely taking out a cigar and lighting it, “to nail you to the tree to prevent your escaping. Vermin is often treated so, you know. But I shan't inconvenience you for long. In a very few minutes I shall be sending people to unpin you and bind you properly, and have you taken off to prison. We have not seen the last of each other yet, my good friend—believe me, we have not.”

Then the man spoke—it was almost in a whisper, but the words came with the horrible liquid lisp Rowan remembered with so much disgust. “No,” he murmured, “we have not seen the last of each other yet—we have not.”

“There's but little fear, I fancy, of your not being here when I send for you,” resumed Rowan, after a moment's pause, during which he and the Moldavian had been steadfastly gazing at each other. “So we needn't waste more time now, and especially as you must be rather uncomfortable. So à bientôt.” Then, just as he was turning away, he stopped. “In case,” said he very quietly, “you should succeed in wriggling away before I send for you, and prefer mutilating your hands to suffering the very many lashes I shall certainly have administered to you, it's as well you should know, perhaps, that when travelling I invariably carry a revolver. I'm without it to-day—very luckily for you—by the merest accident. But I'm not likely to forget again. So take care.”

And then Rowan turned and began strolling leisurely back to where he had left his friends. His last words had not been idly spoken, but were intended to first of all suggest, to the miserable wretch whom he left nailed to the fallen tree, that escape was not altogether impossible, provided he were ready to pay the terrible price of self-mutilation required; and, secondly, to indicate the humiliating nature and severity of the punishment in store for him, that he might decide whether escape at any cost were not preferable to such torture and degradation. For, as a matter of fact, Hippy Rowan, directly the first moment of anger and the accompanying spasm of malignant cruelty had passed away, had decided in his mind to proceed no further in the matter, and by no means to take upon himself the ennui and trouble of having the paltry villain more seriously punished than he had already been. Had he had his revolver with him, he would of course have killed the man; but, as if was, he had nailed him as vermin to a tree in a lonely forest in Asia, and there he would leave him to his fate. He might starve to death there, or escape by a terrible mutilation, or possibly with his teeth remove the knife; or somebody might happen to pass by and relieve him—though this last was hardly likely: but at all events he, Hippy Rowan, having warned the villain what to expect in the event of his again molesting him, would have nothing more to do with the matter, and, indeed, not even mention the disagreeable episode to his friends—at least, not at present.

When Rowan got back to the scene of the picnic, he found the preparations for departure just being completed; and in a few minutes all Djavil's guests were once more comfortably ensconced in the carriages and on their way back to the Bosphorus.

All Djavil's house-guests were tired; so after dinner, a little music and chatting, and some very harmless gambling, they retired to rest much earlier than usual, Rowan being indeed glad when the time came that, unobserved and alone, he could deliver himself up wholly to his reflections, which happened that night to be a strangely melancholy complexion. His rooms were on the ground floor, the windows indeed opening out on to the garden which sloped down to the marble terrace bordering the Bosphorus; and since it was to meditate rather than to sleep that Rowan had sought retirement, the Colonel sent the faithful Adams to bed, lit a cigar and went out, descending to the waterside to enjoy the view. Hardly had he reached the terrace, however, when from its farther end, which lay in shadow, emerged, crawling in the moonlight along the white marble pavement, an awful figure, which he knew but too well—that of Isaac Lebedenko the Moldavian, the man whom he had left but a few hours before nailed to a tree in the forest in Asia. As Rowan saw the man, the man saw him; and as Hippy stepped back and hurriedly felt in his pocket for his revolver, remembering, even as he did so, that he had left that useful weapon on his dressingtable, the Moldavian drew himself up and sprang towards his enemy, pulling, as he did so, with one had the muffler from his face, and disclosing with hideous distinctness in the moonlight the indescribable horror of the countenance of a monster not born of woman, while with the other hand he fumbled in his pocket.