Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen (romantic novels in english .TXT) 📖
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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experiments had he been as successful as Dirk, who in ancient and
modern lore, in languages, algebra, theology, oratory had far outshone
all competitors, and who had progressed dangerously in forbidden
things.
Theirry shook off the feeling of jealousy that possessed him, and
spoke on another subject. “Dirk, I saw a lady to-day—such a lady!”
In their constant, close and tender companionship neither had ever
failed in sympathy, therefore it was with surprise that Theirry saw
Dirk perceptibly harden.
“A lady!” he repeated, and turned from the window so that the shadows
of the room were over his face.
Theirry must have a listener, must loosen his tongue on the subject of
his delicate adventure, so he proceeded.
“Ay—‘twas in the valley—a valley, I mean—which I had never seen
before. Oh, Dirk!” he was leaning against the end of the bed, gazing
across the dusk. “‘Twas a lady so sweet—she had—”
Dirk interrupted him.
“Certes!” he cried angrily; “she had grey eyes belike, and yellow
hair—have they not always yellow hair?—and a mincing mouth and a
manner of glancing sideways, and cunning words, I’ll warrant me—”
“Why, she had all this,” answered Theirry, bewildered. “But she was
pleasant, had you but seen her, Dirk.”
The youth sneered.
“Who is she—thy lady?”
“Jacobea of Martzburg.” He took obvious pleasure in saying her name.
“She is a great lady and gracious.”
“Out on ye!” exclaimed Dirk passionately. “What is she to us? Have we
not other matters to think of? I did not think ye so weak as to come
chanting the praises of the first thing that smiles on ye!”
Theirry was angered.
“‘Tis not the first time—and what have I said of her?”
“Oh enough—ye have lost your heart to her, I doubt not—and what use
will ye be—a love-sick knave!”
“Nay,” answered Theirry hotly. “You have no warrant for this speech.
How should I love the lady, seeing her once? I did but say she was
fair and gentle.”
“‘Tis the first woman you have spoken of to me—in that voice—did ye
not say—‘such a lady’?”
Theirry felt the blood stinging his cheeks.
“Could you have seen her,” he repeated.
“Ay, had I seen her I could tell you how much paint she wore, how
tight her lace was—” Theirry interrupted.
“I’ll hear no more—art a peevish youth, knowing nothing of women; she
was one of God’s roses, pink and white, and we not fit to kiss her
little shoes—ay, that’s pure truth.” Dirk stamped his foot
passionately.
“Little shoes! If you come home to me to rave of her little shoes, and
her pink and white, you may bide alone for me. Speak no more of her.”
Theirry was silent a while; he could not afford to lose Dirk’s
companionship or to have him in an ill temper, nor did he in any way
wish to jeopardise the good understanding between them, so he quelled
the anger that rose in him at the youth’s unreasonabloness, and
answered quietly–“On what matter did you wish to see me?”
Dirk struggled for a moment with a heaving breast and closed his teeth
over a rebellious lip, then he crossed the room and opened the door of
an inner chamber.
He had obtained permission to use this apartment for his studies; the
key of it he carried always with him, and only he and Theirry had ever
entered it.
In silence, lighting a lamp, and placing it on the windowsill, he
beckoned Theirry to follow him.
It was a dismal room; piled against the walls were the books Dirk had
brought with him, and on the open hearth some dead charred sticks lay
scattered.
“See,” said Dirk; he drew from a dark corner a roughly carved wooden
figure some few inches high. “I wrought this to-day—and if I know the
spells aright there is one will pay for his insolence.”
Theirry took the figure in his hand.
“‘Tis Joris of Thuringia.”
Dirk nodded sombrely.
The room was thick with unhealthy odours, and a close stagnant smoke
seemed to hang round the roof; the lamp cast a pulsating yellow light
over the dreariness and threw strange shaped shadows from the jars and
bottles standing about the floor.
“What is this Joris to you?” asked Theirry curiously.
Dirk was unrolling a manuscript inscribed in Persian.
“Nothing. I would see what skill I have.”
The old evil excitement seized Theirry; they had tried spells before,
on cattle and dogs, but without success; his blood tingled at the
thought of an enchantment potent to confound enemies. “Light the
fire,” commanded Dirk.
Theirry set the image by the lamp, and poured a thick yellow fluid
from one of the bottles over the dead sticks.
Then he flung on a handful of grey powder.
A close dun-coloured vapour rose, and a sickly smell filled the room;
then the sticks burst suddenly into a tall and beautiful flame that
sprang noiselessly up the chimney and cast a clear and unnatural glow
round the chamber.
Theirry drew three circles round the fire, and marked the outer one
with characters taken from the manuscripts Dirk held.
Dirk was looking at him as he knelt in the splendid glow of the
flames, and his own heavy brows were frowning.
“Was she beautiful?” he asked abruptly.
Theirry took this as an atonement for the late ill temper, and
answered pleasantly–“Why, she was beautiful, Dirk.”
“And fair?”
“Certes, yellow hair.”
“No more of her,” said the youth in a kind of fierce mournfulness.
“The legend is finished?” “Yea.” Theirry rose from his knees. “And
now?”
Dirk was anointing the little image of the student on the breast, the
eyes and mouth with a liquid poured from a purple phial; then he set
it within the circle round the flame.
“‘Tis carved of ash plucked from a churchyard,” he said. “And the
ingredients of the fire are correct. Now if this fails, Zerdusht
lies.”
He stepped up to the fire and addressed an invocation in Persian to
the soaring flame, then retreated to Theirry’s side.
The whole room was glowing in the clear red light cast by the unholy
fire; the cobweb-hung rafters, the gaunt walls, the books and jars on
the bare floor were all distinctly visible, and the two could see each
other, red, from head to foot.
“Look,” said Dirk, with a slow smile.
The image lying in the magic circle and almost touching the flames
(though not burnt or even scorched), was beginning to writhe and twist
on its back like a creature in pain.
“Ah!” Dirk showed his teeth. “The Magian spell has worked.”
A sensation of giddiness seized Theirry; he heard something beating
loud and fast in his ear, it seemed, but he knew it was his heart that
thumped so, up and down.
The figure, horribly like Joris with its flat hat and student’s robe,
was struggling to its feet and emitting little moans of agony.
“It cannot get out,” breathed Theirry.
“Nay,” whispered Dirk, “wherefore did ye draw the circle?”
The flame was a column of pure fire, and it cast a glow of gold on the
thing imprisoned in the ring Theirry had made; Dirk watched in an
eager way, with neither fear nor compunction, but Theirry felt a wave
of sickness mount to his brain.
The creature was making useless endeavours to escape from the fiery
glare; it groaned and fell on its face, twisted on its back and made
frantic attempts to cross the line that imprisoned it. “Let it out,”
whispered Theirry faintly.
But Dirk was elate with success.
“Ye are mad,” he retorted. “The spell works bravely.”
On the end of his words came a sound that caused both to wince; even
in the lurid light Dirk saw his companion pale.
It was the bell of the college chapel ringing the students to the
vespers.
“I had forgotten,” muttered Dirk. “We must go—it would be noticed.”
“We cannot put the fire out,” cried Theirry.
“Nay, we must leave it—it must burn out,” answered Dirk hurriedly.
The creature, after rushing round the circle in an attempt to escape
had fallen, as if exhausted with its agony, and lay quivering.
“We will leave him, too,” said Dirk unpleasantly.
But Theirry had a tearing memory of a lady kneeling among green
grasses and bending towards him with a dead bird in her hand—tears
for it on her cheeks—a dead bird, and this—
He stooped and snatched up the creature; it shrieked dismally as he
touched it, and he felt the quick flame burn his fingers.
Instantly the fire had sunk into ashes, and he held in his hand a mere
morsel of charred wood. With a sound of disgust he flung this on the
ground.
“Should have let it burn,” said Dirk, with the lamp held aloft to show
him the way across the now dark chamber. “Perchance we cannot relight
it, and I have not finished with the ugly knave.”
They stepped into the outer chamber and Dirk locked the door; Theirry
gasped to feel the fresher air in his nostrils, and a sense of terror
clouded his brain; but Dirk was in high spirits; his eyes narrowed
with excitement, his pale lips set in a hard fashion.
They descended into the hall.
It was a close and sultry evening; through the blunt arches of the
window, dark purple clouds could be seen, lying heavily across the
horizon; the clang of the vesper bell came persistently and with a
jarring note; though the sun had set it was still light, which had a
curious effect of strangeness after the dark chambers upstairs.
Without a word to each other, but side by side, the two students
passed into the ante-chamber that led into the chapel.
And there they stopped.
The pale rays of a candle dispersed the gathering dark and revealed a
group of men standing together and conversing in whispers.
“Why do they not enter the church?” breathed Theirry, with a curious
sensation at his heart. “Something has happened.”
Some of the students turned and saw them; they were forced to come
forward; Dirk was silent and smiling.
“Have you heard?” asked one; all were sober and subdued.
“A horrible thing,” said another. “Joris of Thuringia is struck with a
strange illness. Certes! he fell down amongst us as if in the grip of
hell fire.”
The speaker crossed himself; Theirry could not answer, he felt that
they were all looking at him suspiciously, accusingly, and he
trembled.
“We carried him up to his chamber,” said another. “He shrieked and
tore at his flesh, imploring us to keep the flames off. The priest is
with him now—God guard us from unholy things.” “Why do you say that?”
demanded Theirry fiercely. “Belike his disease was but natural.” A
look passed round the students. “I know not,” one muttered. “It was
strange.”
Dirk, still smiling and silent, turned into the chapel; Theirry and
the others, hushing their surmises, followed.
There were candles on the altar, six feet high, and a confusion of the
senses came over Theirry, in which he saw them as white angels with
flaming haloes coming grievingly for his destruction. A wave of fear
and sorrow rushed over him; he sank on his knees on the stone floor
and fixed his eyes on the priest, whose chasuble was gleaming gold
through the dimness of the incense-filled chapel. The blasphemy and
mortal sin of what
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