by Sax Rohmer
“I find it so myself,” he said. “Everything except opium is to be had at Kazmah’s, and nothing except opium interests me.”
“He supplies me with cocaine,” murmured the comedian. “His figure works out, as nearly as I can estimate it, at 10s 7 1/2d. a grain. I saw him about it yesterday afternoon, pointing out to the brown guy that as the wholesale price is roughly 2 1/4d., I regarded his margin of profit as somewhat broad.”
“Indeed!”
“The first time I had ever seen him, Pyne. I brought an introduction from Dr. Silver, of New York, and Kazmah supplied me without question — at a price.”
“You always saw Rashid?”
“Yes. If there were other visitors I waited. But yesterday I made a personal appointment with Kazmah. He pretended to think I had come to have a dream interpreted. He is clever, Pyne. He never moved a muscle throughout the interview. But finally he assured me that all the receivers in England had amalgamated, and that the price he charged represented a very narrow margin of profit. Of course he is a liar. He is making a fortune. Do you know him personally?”
“No,” replied Sir Lucien, “outside his Bond Street home of mystery he is unknown. A clever man, as you say. You obtain your opium from Lola?”
“Yes. Kazmah sent her to me. She keeps me on ridiculously low rations, and if I had not brought my own outfit I don’t think she would have sold me one. Of course, her game is beating up clients for the Limehouse dive.”
“You have visited ‘The House of a Hundred Raptures’?”
“Many times, at week-ends. Opium, like wine, is better enjoyed in company.”
“Does she post you the opium?”
“Oh, no; my man goes to Limehouse for it. Ah! here she is.”
A woman came in, carrying a brown leather attache case. She had left her hat and coat in the hall, and wore a smart blue serge skirt and a white blouse. She was not tall, but she possessed a remarkably beautiful figure which the cut of her garments was not intended to disguise, and her height was appreciably increased by a pair of suede shoes having the most wonderful heels which Rita ever remembered to have seen worn on or off the stage. They seemed to make her small feet appear smaller, and lent to her slender ankles an exaggerated frontal curve.
Her hair was of that true, glossy black which suggests the blue sheen of raven’s plumage, and her thickly fringed eyes were dark and southern as her hair. She had full, voluptuous lips, and a bold self-assurance. In the swift, calculating glance which she cast about the room there was something greedy and evil; and when it rested upon Rita Dresden’s dainty beauty to the evil greed was added cruelty.
“Another little sister, dear Lola,” murmured Kilfane. “Of course, you know who it is? This, my daughter,” turning the sleepy glance towards Rita, “is our officiating priestess, Mrs. Sin.”
The woman so strangely named revealed her gleaming teeth in a swift, unpleasant smile, then her nostrils dilated and she glanced about her suspiciously.
“Someone smokes the chandu cigarettes,” she said, speaking in a low tone which, nevertheless, failed to disguise her harsh voice, and with a very marked accent.
“I am the offender, dear Lola,” said Kilfane, dreamily waving his cigarette towards her. “I have managed to make the last hundred spin out. You have brought me a new supply?”
“Oh no, indeed,” replied Mrs. Sin, tossing her head in a manner oddly reminiscent of a once famous Spanish dancer. “Next Tuesday you get some more. Ah! it is no good! You talk and talk and it cannot alter anything. Until they come I cannot give them to you.”
“But it appears to me,” murmured Kilfane, “that the supply is always growing less.”
“Of course. The best goes all to Edinburgh now. I have only three sticks of Yezd left of all my stock.”
“But the cigarettes.”
“Are from Buenos Ayres? Yes. But Buenos Ayres must get the opium before we get the cigarettes, eh? Five cases come to London on Tuesday, Cy. Be of good courage, my dear.”
She patted the sallow cheek of the American with her jewelled fingers, and turned aside, glancing about her.
“Yes,” murmured Kilfane. “We are all present, Lola. I have had the room prepared. Come, my children, let us enter the poppy portico.”
He opened a door and stood aside, waving one thin yellow hand between the first two fingers of which smouldered the drugged cigarette. Led by Mrs. Sin the company filed into an apartment evidently intended for a drawing-room, but which had been hastily transformed into an opium divan.
Tables, chairs, and other items of furniture had been stacked against one of the walls and the floor spread with rugs, skins, and numerous silk cushions. A gas fire was alight, but before it had been placed an ornate Japanese screen whereon birds of dazzling plumage hovered amid the leaves of gilded palm trees. In the centre of the room stood a small card-table, and upon it were a large brass tray and an ivory pedestal exquisitely carved in the form of a nude figure having one arm upraised. The figure supported a lamp, the light of which was subdued by a barrel-shaped shade of Chinese workmanship.
Mollie Gretna giggled hysterically.
“Make yourself comfortable, dear,” she cried to Rita, dropping down upon a heap of cushions stacked in a recess beside the fireplace. “I am going to take off my shoes. The last time, Cyrus, when I woke up my feet were quite numb.”
“You should come down to my place,” said Mrs. Sin, setting the leather case on the little card-table beside the lamp. “You have there your own little room and silken sheets to lie in, and it is quiet — so quiet.”
“Oh!” cried Mollie Gretna, “I must come! But I daren’t go alone. Will you come with me, dear?” turning to Rita.
“I don’t know,” was the reply. “I may not like opium.”
“But if you do — and I know you will?”
“Why,” said Rita, glancing rapidly at Pyne, “I suppose it would be a novel experience.”
“Let me arrange it for you,” came the harsh voice of Mrs. Sin. “Lucy will drive you both down — won’t you, my dear?” The shadowed eyes glanced aside at Sir Lucien Pyne.
“Certainly,” he replied. “I am always at the ladies’ service.”
Rita Dresden settled herself luxuriously into a nest of silk and fur in another corner of the room, regarding the baronet coquettishly through her half-lowered lashes.
“I won’t go unless it is my party, Lucy,” she said. “You must let me pay.”
“A detail,” murmured Pyne, crossing and standing beside her.
Interest now became centred upon the preparations being made by Mrs. Sin. From the attache case she took out a lacquered box, silken-lined like a jewel-casket. It contained four singular-looking pipes, the parts of which she began to fit together. The first and largest of these had a thick bamboo stem, an amber mouthpiece, and a tiny, disproportionate bowl of brass. The second was much smaller and was of some dark, highly-polished wood, mounted with silver conceived in an ornate Chinese design representing a long-tailed lizard. The mouthpiece was of jade. The third and fourth pipes were yet smaller, a perfectly matched pair in figured ivory of exquisite workmanship, delicately gold-mounted.
“These for the ladies,” said Mrs. Sin, holding up the pair. “You” — glancing at Kilfane— “have got your own pipe, I know.”
She laid them upon the tray, and now took out of the case a little copper lamp, a smaller lacquered box and a silver spatula, her jewelled fingers handling the queer implements with a familiarity bred of habit.
“What a strange woman!” whispered Rita to Pyne. “Is she an oriental?”
“Cuban-Jewess,” he replied in a low voice.
Mrs. Sin carefully lighted the lamp, which burned with a short, bluish flame, and, opening the lacquered box, she dipped the spatula into the thick gummy substance which it contained and twisted the little instrument round and round between her fingers, presently withdrawing it with a globule of chandu, about the size of a bean, adhering to the end. She glanced aside
at Kilfane.
“Chinese way, eh?” she said.
She began to twirl the prepared opium above the flame of the lamp. From it a slight, sickly smelling vapor arose. No one spoke, but all watched her closely; and Rita was conscious of a growing, pleasurable excitement. When by evaporation the chandu had become reduced to the size of a small pea, and a vague spirituous blue flame began to dance round the end of the spatula, Mrs. Sin pressed it adroitly into the tiny bowl of one of the ivory pipes, having first held the bowl inverted for a moment over the lamp. She turned to Rita.
“The guest of the evening,” she said. “Do not be afraid. Inhale — oh, so gentle — and blow the smoke from the nostrils. You know how to smoke?”
“The same as a cigarette?” asked Rita excitedly, as Mrs. Sin bent over her.
“The same, but very, very gentle.”
Rita took the pipe and raised the mouthpiece to the lips.
CHAPTER XIV. IN THE SHADE OF THE LONELY PALM
Persian opium of good quality contains from ten to fifteen percent morphine, and chandu made from opium of Yezd would contain perhaps twenty-five per cent of this potent drug; but because in the act of smoking distillation occurs, nothing like this quantity of morphine reaches the smoker. To the distilling process, also, may be due the different symptoms resulting from smoking chandu and injecting morphia — or drinking tincture of opium, as De Quincey did.
Rita found the flavor of the preparation to be not entirely unpleasant. Having overcome an initial aversion, caused by its marked medicinal tang, she grew reconciled to it and finished her first smoke without experiencing any other effect than a sensation of placid contentment. Deftly, Mrs. Sin renewed the pipe. Silence had fallen upon the party.
The second “pill” was no more than half consumed when a growing feeling of nausea seized upon the novice, becoming so marked that she dropped the ivory pipe weakly and uttered a faint moan.
Instantly, silently, Mrs. Sin was beside her.
“Lean forward — so,” she whispered, softly, as if fearful of intruding her voice upon these sacred rites. “In a moment you will be better. Then, if you feel faint, lie back. It is the sleep. Do not fight against it.”
The influence of the stronger will prevailed. Self-control and judgment are qualities among the first to succumb to opium. Rita ceased to think longingly of the clean, fresh air, of escape from these sickly fumes which seemed now to fill the room with a moving vacuum. She bent forward, her chin resting upon her breast, and gradually the deathly sickness passed. Mentally, she underwent a change, too. From an active state of resistance the ego traversed a descending curve ending in absolute passivity. The floor had seemingly begun to revolve and was moving insidiously, so that the pattern of the carpet formed a series of concentric rings. She found this imaginary phenomenon to be soothing rather than otherwise, and resigned herself almost eagerly to the delusion.
Mrs. Sin allowed her to fall back upon the cushions — so gently and so slowly that the operation appeared to occupy several minutes and to resemble that of sinking into innumerable layers of swansdown. The sinuous figure bending over her grew taller with the passage of each minute, until the dark eyes of Mrs. Sin were looking down at Rita from a dizzy elevation. As often occurs in the case of a neurotic subject, delusion as to time and space had followed the depression of the sensory cells.
But surely, she mused, this could not be Mrs. Sin who towered so loftily above her. Of course, how absurd to imagine that a woman could remain motionless for so many hours. And Rita thought, now, that she had been lying for several hours beneath the shadow of that tall, graceful, and protective shape.
Why — it was a slender palm-tree, which stretched its fanlike foliage over her! Far, far above her head the long, dusty green fronds projected from the mast-like trunk. The sun, a ball of fiery brass, burned directly in the zenith, so that the shadow of the foliage lay like a carpet about her feet. That which she had mistaken for the ever-receding eyes of Mrs. Sin, wondering with a delightful vagueness why they seemed constantly to change color, proved to be a pair of brilliantly plumaged parrakeets perched upon a lofty branch of the palm.
This was an equatorial noon, and even if she had not found herself to be under the influence of a delicious abstraction Rita would not have moved; for, excepting the friendly palm, not another vestige of vegetation was visible right away to the horizon; nothing but an ocean of sand whereon no living thing moved. She and the parrakeets were alone in the heart of the Great Sahara.
But stay! Many, many miles away, a speck on the dusty carpet of the desert, something moved! Hours must elapse before that tiny figure, provided it were approaching, could reach the solitary palm. Delightedly, Rita contemplated the infinity of time. Even if the figure moved ever so slowly, she should be waiting there beneath the palm to witness its arrival. Already, she had been there for a period which she was far too indolent to strive to compute — a week, perhaps. She turned her attention to the parrakeets. One of them was moving, and she noted with delight that it had perceived her far below and was endeavoring to draw the attention of its less observant companion to her presence. For many hours she lay watching it and wondering why, since the one bird was so singularly intelligent, its companion was equally dull. When she lowered her eyes and looked out again across the sands, the figure had approached so close as to be recognizable.
It was that of Mrs. Sin. Rita appreciated the fitness of her presence, and experienced no surprise, only a mild curiosity. This curiosity was not concerned with Mrs. Sin herself, but with the nature of the burden which she bore upon her head.
She was dressed in a manner which Rita dreamily thought would have been inadequate in England, or even in Cuba, but which was appropriate in the Great Sahara. How exquisitely she carried herself, mused the dreamer; no doubt this fine carriage was due in part to her wearing golden shoes with heels like stilts, and in part to her having been trained to bear heavy burdens upon her head. Rita remembered that Sir Lucien had once described to her the elegant deportment of the Arab women, ascribing it to their custom of carrying water-jars in that way.
The appearance of the speck on the horizon had marked the height of her trance. Her recognition of Mrs. Sin had signalized the decline of the chandu influence. Now, the intrusion of a definite, uncontorted memory was evidence of returning cerebral activity.
Rita had no recollection of the sunset; indeed, she had failed to perceive any change in the form and position of the shadow cast by the foliage. It had spread, an ebony patch, equally about the bole of the tree, so that the sun must have been immediately overhead. But, of course, she had lain watching the parrakeets for several hours, and now night had fallen. The desert mounds were touched with silver, the sky was a nest of diamonds, and the moon cast a shadow of the palm like a bar of ebony right across the prospect to the rim of the sky dome.
Mrs. Sin stood before her, one half of her lithe body concealed by this strange black shadow and the other half gleaming in the moonlight so that she resembled a beautiful ivory statue which some iconoclast had cut in two.
Placing her burden upon the ground, Mrs. Sin knelt down before Rita and reverently kissed her hand, whispering: “I am your slave, my poppy queen.”
She spoke in a strange language, no doubt some African tongue, but one which Rita understood perfectly. Then she laid one hand upon the object which she had carried on her head, and which now proved to be a large lacquered casket covered with Chinese figures and bound by three hoops of gold. It had a very curious shape.
“Do you command that the chest be opened?” she asked.
“Yes,” answered Rita languidly.
Mrs. Sin threw up the lid, and from the interior of the casket which, because of the glare of the moon light, seemed every moment to assume a new form, drew out a bronze lamp.
“The sacred lamp,” she whispered, and placed it on the sand. “Do you command that it be lighted?”
Rita inclined her head.
The lamp becam
e lighted; in what manner she did not observe, nor was she curious to learn. Next from the large casket Mrs. Sin took another smaller casket and a very long, tapering silver bodkin. The first casket had perceptibly increased in size. It was certainly much larger than Rita had supposed; for now out from its shadowy interior Mrs. Sin began to take pipes — long pipes and short pipes, pipes of gold and pipes of silver, pipes of ivory and pipes of jade. Some were carved to represent the heads of demons, some had the bodies of serpents wreathed about them; others were encrusted with precious gems, and filled the night with the venomous sheen of emeralds, the blood-rays of rubies and golden glow of topaz, while the spear-points of diamonds flashed a challenge to the stars.
“Do you command that the pipes be lighted?” asked the harsh voice.
Rita desired to answer, “No,” but heard herself saying, “Yes.”
Thereupon, from a thousand bowls, linking that lonely palm to the remote horizon, a thousand elfin fires arose — blue-tongued and spirituous. Grey pencilings of smoke stole straightly upward to the sky, so that look where she would Rita could discern nothing but these countless thin, faintly wavering, vertical lines of vapor.
The dimensions of the lacquered casket had increased so vastly as to conceal the kneeling figure of Mrs. Sin, and staring at it wonderingly, Rita suddenly perceived that it was not an ordinary casket. She knew at last why its shape had struck her as being unusual.
It was a Chinese coffin.
The smell of the burning opium was stifling her. Those remorseless threads of smoke were closing in, twining themselves about her throat. It was becoming cold, too, and the moonlight was growing dim. The position of the moon had changed, of course, as the night had stolen on towards morning, and now it hung dimly before her. The smoke obscured it.
But was this smoke obscuring the moon? Rita moved her hands for the first time since she had found herself under the palm tree, weakly fending off those vaporous tentacles which were seeking to entwine themselves about her throat. Of course, it was not smoke obscuring the moon, she decided; it was a lamp, upheld by an ivory figure — a lamp with a Chinese shade.
