The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

offer you that position--a lifeappointment--at a salary of 2000 pounds English each year."

  In spite of myself I gasped at the munificence of this offer. In aflash I saw all the magnificent possibilities of a position of eminenceand of usefulness such as that--to practise as a means of livelihood thefinest and most fascinating hobby man who loved history ever had--and Iown I was just on the point of accepting it when I felt instinctivelythe prick of the thorn hidden beneath the rose. I had to renounce myrights as an Englishman! I had to disavow my birthright! I had tothrow aside the thing I treasured most--pride of race and birth! Howcould I do this with those burning words of the old hermit in his cellringing even then in my ears? The Order of St Bruno might be a gang ofspendthrifts, they might have as officers adventurers who exploited thepoor puffed-up patriots they caught in the meshes of their sophistriesand vanity of their habits, but, after all, their ideal was too noble tocast aside just for money alone.

  "Must--must this curator be a Spaniard?" I cried, stretching out myhands.

  "He must," came the inexorable answer.

  "Then I am deeply honoured by the trouble you have taken, the kindlyinterest you have shown in me," I replied slowly, "but the thing isfrankly impossible--I cannot give up my nationality at a word in the theway you stipulate."

  There was a sudden shout, so loud that it sent me staggering backwardwith my hands pressed closely to the drums of my ears. TheCardinal-Archbishop appeared to bound from his throne like a man who hadbeen shot, and once again, as something soft, diaphanous, and white waswaved in front of me, I caught the sickly, sticky smell of chloroform,which overpowered me so quickly that almost as soon as it reached me Idropped to a lounge like a man dead with sleep.

  When next I came to my senses I was astounded to find myself stretchedon the floor in that same hermit's cell from which I had started. Theold monk who had first explained to me the secret that held men togetherin the Order of St Bruno was bending over me, bathing my temples withsome aromatic preparation from a small silver ewer that stood on thefloor beside him, whilst I found my head resting on the only evidence ofluxury in the place--a beautifully--embroidered silken cushion, thatinsensibly recalled to me all the glories of the palace of theCardinal-Archbishop of Toledo.

  Weak and trembling, like a man who had just recovered from a long anddebilitating illness, I scrambled to my feet, and, aided by mycompanion, I seated myself on a chair that was standing near the table.

  "Tell me," I said, passing a tremulous hand over my throbbing forehead,"what has happened? Have you had a serious accident here while I havebeen in this cell?"

  "No," he said, with a grave shake of his head; "nothing has occurredhere--nothing at all."

  "Did something hit me, or was I all of a sudden stricken with a fit."

  "Neither," he replied; "all through you have been a free and a consciousagent."

  "Then, I didn't dream! I didn't rave! I have actually seen the thingsI have pictured?" I stammered, thoroughly bewildered by the man'ssteady and truthful gaze. "Oh! I have it," I cried suddenly again,"you have hypnotised me! You made me believe that I was first at thefoot of a mountain in far-off Africa then on the snowclad wastes ofCanada, and afterwards in a noble throne-room in Spain, where an offerwas made that tempted me most sorely."

  "That is not so," he answered coldly. "I am not a hypnotist! I do notunderstand mesmerism, and, if I did, I wouldn't practise it. I considerit is based on a malign perversion of some beneficent law of Nature.

  "No," he went on, reaching out a hand and turning up the light that hungabove his head; "there has been no occult influence at work here--noneat all. All that you have seen has happened, fairly enough, but withthis distinction--it has all happened round about this room.

  "As a matter of fact, you must always remember this," he proceeded, "thefounder of our order, the Bruno Delganni, had a most marvellousknowledge of stage mechanics and effects, and when he found it so hardto discover whether the men who wished to join him were really patriotsor not he turned this knowledge to the use you have seen. He erected inevery monastery that he established huge theatrical machinery andproperties, with the result that the brethren there are able to carryout any kind of test they wish.

  "In your case, the plan agreed on was a very simple but an effectiveone. The first idea was to give you a fright, and then to take you offon all manner of excursions, so that you would not realise when thesupreme test came what and which it was. Hence the deaths on themountain and in the snowstorm. The real trial came when we played withall the force we could on the one string we knew held you like a vice--your love of manuscripts. Would you respond to this and renounce yourbirthright, or not?

  "Luckily, you did not, although we bent every energy we had, every trickwe knew, to lure you into the trap, using hasheesh, chloroform, anythingthat suited our purpose, to make our stage scenes seem to you the morevital, the more real. In the end you made the supreme refusal--youwould not cease to be an Englishman. Therefore all our show ended assuddenly as it had begun. We had tested you, and we had found you werereally the patriot you had always pretended to be to Jose Casteno whenany question arose of the safety or the use of those three manuscriptsthat gave the whereabouts of the Lake of Sacred Treasure.

  "We wanted to learn no more then. We decided there and then that youwere the kind of novice which the Order of St Bruno required, and wehastened back to our proper garbs again, anxious only now to bring theceremony of initiation to an end. Hence it has come about that only oneother test remains to be applied to you, and then you will be free toenter forthwith on all the rights and privileges of our brotherhood,which are, I am to explain, very numerous, far-reaching, and valuable.

  "Do not fear it. In character, in effect, it is totally different toany experience you have been through; but our noble founder, BrunoDelganni, held it to be a very precious expedient to practise, and inhis institutes, which we follow with scrupulous exactness, he lays itdown in the clearest fashion that on no account must we omit it, howeverenthusiastic we may feel at the conduct of our novice in the other andmore theatrical tests we have applied to him."

  "Very well," I said resignedly. "I am prepared. Do with me as youwill." And taking the glass of wine he pressed on me I drained it, andthen seated myself once more in the chair to await developments,although in my inmost heart I felt so upset and confused that I hardlyknew how to speak.

  With a stately inclination of the head the old monk passed through thedoorway and left me.

  Slowly, very very slowly, the light faded, and then I became surroundedby soft greyish darkness that afflicted me with a sense of intensemournfulness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

  THE USE OF THE IMAGE.

  For several seconds I felt that I could not bear the strain and suspenseof this fresh test; already I had suffered so much I had grown weak andnervous. I wanted to be quiet, to sit still for a few minutes, and tothink out all the extraordinary things I had heard and witnessed. Yethere I was caught up in this weird kaleidoscope of sensation. I nolonger felt my feet on solid earth, but all at once I recognised that Ihad become the prey of some elements that defied all the ordinary lawsof reason, and might, if I gave way to childish or unreasoning panic,send me practically demented.

  In vain I told myself that the whole movement about me was but theinsane jest of some crazy stage craftsman. In vain I held myselftightly together, and with all the vigour I was capable of anathematisedDelganni for his preposterous notions of finding out the true metal of aman and what, in apparently grave moments of physical distress, he mightbe capable of. The hideousness of the scene afflicted me with a senseof intolerable vertigo. First there were ear-piercing screams, thenlong lurid intervals of silence in which some red light burned angrilyin the background, and I saw the walls about me and the ceiling above mebend and crack and stoop; there appeared to be nothing--nothing toprevent them falling with a crash upon me and dashing me to instantannihilation.

  The culmi
nating horror of it all was reached when even the chair onwhich I sat, the table against which I rested, began to slowly revolve.The movements of the floor were steady, well ordered and rhythmical,but, as loud sonorous sounds were struck, afar off, on some brazeninstruments, the framework seemed to rock and roll, as though the veryearth were shaken by some subterranean power.

  I verily believe that the physical strain of saving myself from beingpitched forward kept me sane in these moments. I know I began byextending my rage to all secret societies, and then I passed on toswearing at myself for being so rash and foolish as to submit myself tothese indignities--I, a free-born Englishman, upon whom, if I hadconfined myself to the ordinary walk of life, nobody dared lay a hand sogrim and preposterous as this was.

  Finally, as the movement grew more erratic, I was