The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

demanded the Prior, now drawing back andgiving me a most searching look. "Remember, this is no child's play--weare men with men's purposes."

  "I will undergo any test," I returned recklessly, for all at once I hadseen that if I were to continue on the track of those three manuscriptsI must stand by St Bruno's whether I wanted to or not. Hence, now Ihad got the chance of joining the society, I was resolved to let nofoolish scruples stand in the way but to go into the thing heart andsoul till the whole mystery of its existence stood clearly out.

  The Prior and Casteno now drew together and conferred for a few minutesin whispers. Afterwards the Spaniard approached me as the MP hurriedoff, and said: "If you will go into an ante-room at the end of thepassage the Order will be called together here and their pleasure aboutyou instantly ascertained. If they decide to admit you your initiationwill be proceeded with at once." And thereon he conducted me to asmall, barely-furnished waiting-room and, closing the door upon me, leftme to my own reflections, which, now the critical moment had come, were,I regret to state, none of the most pleasant.

  Nor was that feeling of apprehension removed when, about twenty minuteslater, Casteno reappeared and told me that the Order had approved me andthat I was about to become a St Bruno-ite. All at once I realised thatthis initiation upon which I had decided to venture with so muchfoolhardy pluck might be a most serious business for me and for myfuture.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN.

  REVEALS THE SECRET OF THE ORDER.

  There are, of course, many strange and weird methods used for theinitiation of novices into secret societies. As the years have rolledon it has fallen to my lot to belong to a large number of these quaintorganisations; and I have been always impressed by one fact about them--whether they were rowdy and very humanly convivial, or whether they werewholly serious and oppressed by a lot of ill-digested moralearnestness--they all aimed at one thing in their entrance ceremonies.They strove to impress the new-comer by all the resources they had attheir command with the majestic wonder and glory and weight of thebrotherhood to which he had been privileged to enter on the payment ofthe usual entrance fees.

  Now sometimes, of course, these resources I have mentioned are purelyridiculous, as witness that noble and ancient Order which directs itsinitiates, when they are blindfold, to crawl step by step up a flight ofstairs, only to fall with a splash from the top into anartfully-arranged tank of lukewarm water at the bottom. Also, there isa body of apparently sane men in existence who have come together in thesacred name of charity and who find the climax of artistic realism inthe disguise of themselves in long white beards and cloaks and in aprofound darkness, which leaves them free to play practical jokes of themost stupid description on the strangers within their gates.

  On the other hand, by the use of waxen effigies and coffins and othersymbols of the shortness of life, there are associations which try thenerves of the candidate in the most severe fashion.

  I am no enemy of secret societies and no friend. Possibly, with two orthree exceptions, they are none of them very much good either to the menwho belong to them or to the cause they espouse. All these early testsare justified by one and the same plea--that they serve to reveal thereal character of the man who comes before them for reception. So theydo. But decent people find it hard to be heroic when they feelthemselves thrown suddenly on their backs, and have a revolver pressedto their temples, and, in language of flowing periods that recall thenoblest efforts of Burke and John B. Gough, are told they are traitorsand spies and deserve to be blown into atoms!

  One graceless scamp I knew subjected to this test jumped up unexpectedlyand yelled blue murder, then let out his fist with a haste thatsurprised, and much pained, the apoplectic warden who was exhorting himto confession and repentance, and whose mouth never resumed its naturalposition after this truly lamentable occurrence. As a rule, though,candidates suffer these things according to their temperaments and themeasure of their fortitude, and they receive the joy of their reward atthe sight of, and part in the initiation of, their dearest and theirbest friends.

  Personally, I was too old a hand at the entrance to a secretorganisation to feel much trepidation when Jose came to me in that tinywaiting-room in the London quarters of the Order of St Bruno and toldme the decision of the brethren.

  "After all," I reasoned within myself, "in a few moments I shall knowthe best and worst about these quaintly-garbed people. It is useless toanticipate. So far as I know there is only one rule to guide a man at amoment like this, and that was given me by a man who had money and muchleisure coupled with the mania to belong to all the secret societies inexistence. He it was who said: `Whatever they ask you to do, do it;whatever they ask you to say, say it; whatever they ask you to believe,believe it.' In one word, reverence is the true keynote to all theseinitiations, and possessed of this every man may go forward withconfidence and good will, certain that by its use he will flatter hisfellow-members and save himself a good deal of confusion andshamefacedness."

  Hence I arose immediately I was bidden and, signifying my willingness toproceed, followed the Spaniard down the corridor, which all at once hadgrown strangely silent and gloomy-looking, for the gas lights had nowbeen lowered to a tiny blue glimmer, and as I moved forward I caught thesound of a low dirge-like chant that might well have passed for anOffice of the Dead.

  Now music at such a moment is a very curious and powerful agent.Indeed, I don't know what some secret societies would do without it.Although I had quite made up my mind not to be impressed by thisinitiation but to keep every nerve and sense on the alert to see iftreachery were afoot regarding that Lake of Sacred Treasure, I caughtmyself again and again giving way to a shiver. Indeed, now and then thesounds would break from a plain chant into a long, low mournful wail ofanguish inexpressibly pitiful and sad, summoning at a note, as it were,all the grisly, ghostly spectres of the hearer's dead and gone memoriesand making friends walk in imagination that had long since gatheredtheir tired muscles together and stretched their weary limbs out in alast sleep from which no human hand should ever awaken them.

  At length, with nerves strung up to a painful tension, I was led into atiny vault-like cell, and the door suddenly closed upon me. At first,so abrupt was the change, that I could see nothing. But after a time myeyes managed to pierce the gloom, and through the half lights I saw infront of me an old monk seated at a table poring over a huge and mustyvolume.

  For two or three minutes he took no notice of me at all. Then suddenly,when I least expected it, he looked up at me, and his expression wascalm, benign, yet dignified.

  "I understand," he began in a rich, penetrating voice that had awonderful melody in it, "that you have, for some selfish reason of yourown, decided to seek election in our Order of St Bruno. You are nostranger to secret societies or their methods, and you think it a cheapand an easy way to get at certain facts which you are anxious topossess."

  He stopped and gazed searchingly at me, as though he would read thedeepest secret of my heart, and I flushed scarlet. I had not expectedthis form of address, and his charge threw my mind off its usualbalance.

  "Indeed, sir," I broke out hotly, "I have done--I have suggested nothingof the sort."

  "Are you quite sure of that?" he returned softly, bending down andsearching for something amongst his papers on the table. "Do you notdeceive yourself rather than me? Have you not made a bit of a mistakein that contention? Just look at that a moment, and study what you seethere, and tell me whether my surmise is not really correct." He handedme a small silver casket about ten inches square, and as I pulled openthe lid a light suddenly flashed in the depths of the box, and I caughtthe reflection of my own features in the mirror that had been artfullyconcealed at the bottom. For a second--but only for a second--I wasinclined to be very angry, very angry indeed. Then I checked myself.Why, after all, should I fall into that very common error and getenraged with the truth?

  "You are quite right," I said, suddenly closing up the casket andpassing this
portable mirror back to him. "I have decided to join youfor the cause you have told me. I am sorry if it is likely to give youor the other members of the Order any annoyance, but remember, my facehas spoken where I have been silent and revealed the truth to you--"

  "And as a matter of fact," he interposed gently, "you are no worse andno better than nine-tenths of the men we have here through our hands,and we reject them because they are not fit to be of us.

  "Still," he went on with increasing earnestness, "we have no wish tolose the value of your powerful personality and influence from theOrder. On the contrary, indeed, we welcome the prospect of youradhesion, and we only hope that you will succeed in going through thetests we shall be bound to set you before we can receive you with creditto ourselves, and hope for your own peace of mind and happiness. As amatter of fact, we have long had you