The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

content to hang on,and I hung on so effectually that my tortures all at once ceased totorture me, the movements in the hermit's cell stopped as though bymagic, the light grew larger, rounder, more luminous, and suddenlyCasteno appeared through the gloom in the doorway with a hand stretchedout in welcome.

  "I congratulate you, Glynn," he said. "You have gone through all thetests required with flying colours. Now, come with me and receive yourreward."

  Stiff, sick, and sore, I rose unsteadily from the chair and grabbed hisarm. "I'll come with you all right," I panted, "but the kind of rewardI feel interested in just at this minute is to give somebody such athrashing that will relieve my feelings and teach my good friends at StBruno's the danger of banging and bewildering a man in the way I havebeen."

  "Well," conceded Jose, with a pleasant smile, "some of us do hold thatthis ceremony of initiation into the Order is rather foolish; but, afterall, we don't quite know how we can get out of it. In the first place,we see that Delganni was really a most wonderful man. Years before wehad all this babble and talk and political trickery about a wiseimperialism for England, and a Greater Britain, and the responsibilitiesof empire and so forth, he saw the eternal mission of our country, andhe saw it clearly. More than that, he did, with all those fantasticmethods of his, manage to institute this brotherhood and to get a veryfine and reliable nucleus of workers together. That being so, who arewe, his disciples as it were, to judge him? We are glad enough to takeup his burden and his dream just when he laid them down. Then, if weput away this ceremony of initiation of his, what ceremony could wedevise to take its place?"

  "Anything," I snapped, "anything but the one you have." And with him Ibegan to walk down the corridor.

  "I am not so sure about that," answered Casteno. "There will, Isuppose, be always adventurers attracted to a cause by loaves andfishes, and it is highly necessary for the ideal we cherish that suchshould be weeded out. Anything that stops these sharks is useful, veryuseful. Why, we have had both Lord Cyril Cuthbertson and LordFotheringay up before us for examination, and we played so well on theirweak points, as we tried to play on yours, over the place of curator atToledo, that we actually got them to say they would renounce theirnationality as Englishmen! No wonder, then, we won't trust them withthe deeds that would show the whereabouts of the Lake of SacredTreasure. In our opinion, they are nothing more than the mostpestilential parasites England has ever bred--I mean politicalpatriots!"

  I halted in amazement. "Then," I stammered, "am I to take it that theOrder is so rich and so powerful that even His Majesty's Secretary forForeign Affairs tried to get within its ranks?"

  "Indeed it is," answered Casteno earnestly. "Why, it is true BrunoDelganni only left about a million, but that million he left was in landnear Leeds which had not at the time been exploited. Since his death ithas been opened up, developed, and sold with remarkable care and skill,with the result that, aided by other benefactions, the Order to-day isenormously wealthy. It was computed a short time ago that if we dividedthe property amongst the members for any reason, say a terrific Europeanwar with England where the cash might in a patriotic sense be useful, weshould each receive about seventy-five thousand pounds.

  "And perhaps, what is more to the point just now, you will now becomeentitled to a share of that amount. In fact, we St Bruno-ites boastand know we shall never want money for any good purpose either forourselves or our friends. We have only to apply to the three rulers wehave, whom we call the Council of Three, to get it.

  "For instance, when I am married I shall ask their assistance, and I amsure they will yield it to me with great pleasure, and that they willallot my bride and myself such a handsome wedding portion that neithershe nor I will ever want the means of keeping up a perfectly respectableand well-balanced position in society. Why, there are to-day five orsix members of Parliament who are St Bruno-ites, and where do you thinkthey get the means from to win their different constituencies and tokeep up their seats? From the Order, of course; and yet they never setfoot inside these walls or write a line to the Council of Three fromyear's end to year's end. The money they require is put to their creditat their particular bank regularly every quarter, and all they do is tosend to the Council of Three every New Year's Day a small slip bearingthe words: `Ready, ay ready,' with the date, and their ordinarysignatures."

  "And shall I be entitled to similar consideration?" I queried,blundering into a foolish, selfish question out of sheer nervousness.

  "Of course you will," answered Casteno, smilingly; "all are equal inthis house--there are no favourites. The idea is that everybody wantseverybody else to be perfectly happy and comfortable. You can come whenyou like; you can go when you like. Once in the house, of course, as aresident you have to submit yourself to the semi-monastic rule weaffect, but you will find even that very good and helpful to you--yes,even the strikingly distinctive dress we wear--for it will serve torecall to you the sacred duties of patriotism which you have undertaken.It will accustom you, in a way, to your own ideal."

  "But why is the place so unlike a monastery?" I asked, stoppingsuddenly and pointing to some of the beautiful modern pictures whichadorned the walls. "Look at these lovely works of art! There isnothing grim, nothing austere, nothing of self-sacrifice in these."

  "Of course there isn't," returned Casteno gaily. "We want our men to beas bright, as cheerful, and as ardent lovers of beauty and goodness aswe can. We never interfere with their religions. That is their affair.Ours, we own, is a frankly worldly organisation, which, although it isunder divine favour, we hope, as witness our watchwords: `God' and`England,' does really work to a worldly and an obvious conclusion.Therefore we make use of all the best things of the world, and amongstthose we place beauty and things of beauty as of the highest therapeuticimportance!"

  "Is that why you have that statue in the entrance hall?" Iquestioned--"that wonderful figure of a woman, with the face of a Greekgoddess, which stands on a pedestal, and before which there seem to beconstant offerings of flowers and candles."

  Jose stopped at the mere suggestion, and laughed quite loudly. "Goodgracious, no, man!" he replied so soon as he recovered his breath, "thatstatue has nothing to do with the members--nothing at all. You mustknow that poor old Bruno Delganni, although he really was a patrioticgenius, had also a strangely poetic and romantic vein in hiscomposition. Hence, when he found that the dream of his life, the Orderof St Bruno, did actually take form and substance and become a livingorganism powerful for great historical ends and occasions, he bethoughthimself of another vision of his youth--the woman who would not marryhim.

  "Of course, this idol of his, like all women with these faces of perfectbeauty of form and expression, had no soul and no heart. In my opinionall those women in history who inspired noble resolves were like theidol of poor Bruno Delganni--Dante's Beatrice, I mean, Paolo'sFrancesca, Werther's Charlotte, and so forth--mere mirrors in whichgreat men saw depicted their own great possibilities.

  "At all events, the woman in question married Bruno's elder brother,because he was the better off, but Bruno never forgot her, and on hisdeathbed he ordered that her statue should be carved from an oldphotograph of her that he had in his possession and that a replica ofthat work of art should be placed in the refectory of each houseconnected with the Order of St Bruno and duly and regularly adornedwith so many candles and flowers.

  "Unfortunately, we graceless bachelors, when we feel particularlyirreverent, say that our founder had the image placed there as a fearfulwarning to us against pretty women, as a dumb but forcible appeal toeach one of us to remember that `handsome is as handsome does,' that`beauty is only skin deep,' and that as the flowers around the statuefade so does woman's charm. But it means nothing beyond this--nothingwhatever." And he caught me by one arm and stayed my steps opposite toone of the doors let into the wall.

  "But here we are," he went on in a more restrained tone. "When I openthis you will find yourself in the presence of the brotherhood, all
ofwhom, absolutely without exception, are eager to welcome you as one ofthemselves. Don't be frightened of them. You have got through all thetests, and nothing but a joyous reception of you as a fine adherent toBrunoism now remains to be gone through. They all of them know aboutthe manuscripts and the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano, and allyou have done to assist me, so you can talk to anyone with the utmostfreedom. When this is over I will get you to come with me and we willtackle the translation of the deeds with the aid of the key to theJesuits' cipher which Miss Velasquon has brought from Mexico; but atpresent your formal recognition as a Bruno-ite is the thing in hand, sofollow