Robert Louis Stevenson: An Anthology

by Kevin MacNeil

  ‘It is well, Dr Noel,’ replied Florizel, aloud; and then addressing the others, ‘You will excuse me, gentlemen,’ he added, ‘if I have to leave you in the dark. The moment now approaches.’

  Dr Noel extinguished the lamp. A faint, grey light, premonitory of the dawn, illuminated the window, but was not sufficient to illuminate the room; and when the Prince rose to his feet, it was impossible to distinguish his features or to make a guess at the nature of the emotion which obviously affected him as he spoke. He moved towards the door, and placed himself at one side of it in an attitude of the wariest attention.

  ‘You will have the kindness,’ he said, ‘to maintain the strictest silence, and to conceal yourselves in the densest of the shadow.’

  The three officers and the physician hastened to obey, and for nearly ten minutes the only sound in Rochester House was occasioned by the excursions of the rats behind the woodwork. At the end of that period, a loud creak of a hinge broke in with surprising distinctness on the silence; and shortly after, the watchers could distinguish a slow and cautious tread approaching up the kitchen stair. At every second step the intruder seemed to pause and lend an ear, and during these intervals, which seemed of an incalculable duration, a profound disquiet possessed the spirit of the listeners. Dr Noel, accustomed as he was to dangerous emotions, suffered an almost pitiful physical prostration; his breath whistled in his lungs, his teeth grated one upon another, and his joints cracked aloud as he nervously shifted his position.

  At last a hand was laid upon the door, and the bolt shot back with a slight report. There followed another pause, during which Brackenbury could see the Prince draw himself together noiselessly as if for some unusual exertion. Then the door opened, letting in a little more of the light of the morning; and the figure of a man appeared upon the threshold and stood motionless. He was tall, and carried a knife in his hand. Even in the twilight they could see his upper teeth bare and glistening, for his mouth was open like that of a hound about to leap. The man had evidently been over the head in water but a minute or two before; and even while he stood there the drops kept falling from his wet clothes and pattered on the floor.

  The next moment he crossed the threshold. There was a leap, a stifled cry, an instantaneous struggle; and before Colonel Geraldine could spring to his aid, the Prince held the man, disarmed and helpless, by the shoulders.

  ‘Dr Noel,’ he said, ‘you will be so good as to relight the lamp.’

  And relinquishing the charge of his prisoner to Geraldine and Brackenbury, he crossed the room and set his back against the chimney-piece. As soon as the lamp had kindled, the party beheld an unaccustomed sternness on the Prince’s features. It was no longer Florizel, the careless gentleman; it was the Prince of Bohemia, justly incensed and full of deadly purpose, who now raised his head and addressed the captive President of the Suicide Club.

  ‘President,’ he said, ‘you have laid your last snare, and your own feet are taken in it. The day is beginning; it is your last morning. You have just swum the Regent’s Canal; it is your last bathe in this world. Your old accomplice, Dr Noel, so far from betraying me, has delivered you into my hands for judgment. And the grave you had dug for me this afternoon shall serve, in God’s Almighty Providence, to hide your own just doom from the curiosity of mankind. Kneel and pray, sir, if you have a mind that way; for your time is short, and God is weary of your iniquities.’

  The President made no answer either by word or sign; but continued to hang his head and gaze sullenly on the floor, as though he were conscious of the Prince’s prolonged and unsparing regard.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ continued Florizel, resuming the ordinary tone of his conversation, ‘this is a fellow who has long eluded me, but whom, thanks to Dr Noel, I now have tightly by the heels. To tell the story of his misdeeds would occupy more time than we can now afford; but if the canal had contained nothing but the blood of his victims, I believe the wretch would have been no drier than you see him. Even in an affair of this sort I desire to preserve the forms of honour. But I make you the judges, gentlemen—this is more an execution than a duel; and to give the rogue his choice of weapons would be to push too far a point of etiquette. I cannot afford to lose my life in such a business,’ he continued, unlocking the case of swords; ‘and as a pistol-bullet travels so often on the wings of chance, and skill and courage may fall by the most trembling marksman, I have decided, and I feel sure you will approve my determination, to put this question to the touch of swords.’

  When Brackenbury and Major O’Rooke, to whom these remarks were particularly addressed, had each intimated his approval, ‘Quick, sir,’ added Prince Florizel to the President, ‘choose a blade and do not keep me waiting; I have an impatience to be done with you for ever.’

  For the first time since he was captured and disarmed the President raised his head, and it was plain that he began instantly to pluck up courage.

  ‘Is it to be stand up?’ he asked eagerly, ‘and between you and me?’

  ‘I mean so far to honour you,’ replied the Prince.

  ‘Oh, come!’ cried the President. ‘With a fair field, who knows how things may happen? I must add that I consider it handsome behaviour on your Highness’s part; and if the worst comes to the worst I shall die by one of the most gallant gentlemen in Europe.’

  And the President, liberated by those who had detained him, stepped up to the table and began, with minute attention, to select a sword. He was highly elated, and seemed to feel no doubt that he should issue victorious from the contest. The spectators grew alarmed in the face of so entire a confidence, and adjured Prince Florizel to reconsider his intention.

  ‘It is but a farce,’ he answered; ‘and I think I can promise you, gentlemen, that it will not be long a-playing.’

  ‘Your Highness will be careful not to overreach,’ said Colonel Geraldine.

  ‘Geraldine,’ returned the Prince, ‘did you ever know me fail in a debt of honour? I owe you this man’s death, and you shall have it.’

  The President at last satisfied himself with one of the rapiers, and signified his readiness by a gesture that was not devoid of a rude nobility. The nearness of peril, and the sense of courage, even to this obnoxious villain, lent an air of manhood and a certain grace.

  The Prince helped himself at random to a sword.

  ‘Colonel Geraldine and Doctor Noel,’ he said, ‘will have the goodness to await me in this room. I wish no personal friend of mine to be involved in this transaction. Major O’Rooke, you are a man of some years and a settled reputation—let me recommend the President to your good graces. Lieutenant Rich will be so good as to lend me his attentions: a young man cannot have too much experience in such affairs.’

  ‘Your Highness,’ replied Brackenbury, ‘it is an honour I shall prize extremely.’

  ‘It is well,’ returned Prince Florizel; ‘I shall hope to stand your friend in more important circumstances.’

  And so saying he led the way out of the apartment and down the kitchen stairs.

  The two men who were thus left alone threw open the window and leaned out, straining every sense to catch an indication of the tragical events that were about to follow. The rain was now over; day had almost come, and the birds were piping in the shrubbery and on the forest trees of the garden. The Prince and his companions were visible for a moment as they followed an alley between two flowering thickets; but at the first corner a clump of foliage intervened, and they were again concealed from view. This was all the Colonel and the physician had an opportunity to see, and the garden was so vast, and the place of combat evidently so remote from the house, that not even the noise of sword-play reached their ears.

  ‘He has taken him towards the grave,’ said Dr Noel, with a shudder.

  ‘God,’ cried the Colonel, ‘God defend the right!’

  And they awaited the event in silence, the Doctor shaking with fear, the Colonel in an agony of sweat. Many minutes must have elapsed, the day was sensibly broader, and the
birds were singing more heartily in the garden before a sound of returning footsteps recalled their glances towards the door. It was the Prince and the two Indian officers who entered. God had defended the right.

  ‘I am ashamed of my emotion,’ said Prince Florizel; ‘I feel it a weakness unworthy of my station, but the continued existence of that hound of Hell had begun to play upon me like a disease, and his death has more refreshed me than a night of slumber. Look, Geraldine,’ he continued, throwing his sword upon the floor, ‘there is the blood of the man who killed your brother. It should be a welcome sight. And yet,’ he added, ‘see how strangely we men are made! my revenge is not yet five minutes old, and already I am beginning to ask myself if even revenge be attainable on this precarious stage of life. The ill he did, who can undo it? The career in which he amassed a huge fortune (for the house itself in which he stayed belonged to him)—that career is now a part of the destiny of mankind forever; and I might weary myself making thrusts in carte until the crack of judgment, and Geraldine’s brother would be none the less dead, and a thousand other innocent persons would be none the less dishonoured and debauched! The existence of a man is so small a thing to take, so mighty a thing to employ! Alas!’ he cried, ‘is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?’

  ‘God’s justice has been done,’ replied the Doctor. ‘So much I behold. The lesson, your Highness, has been a cruel one for me; and I await my own turn with deadly apprehension.’

  ‘What was I saying?’ cried the Prince. ‘I have punished, and here is the man beside us who can help me to undo. Ah, Doctor Noel! you and I have before us many a day of hard and honourable toil; and perhaps, before we have done, you may have more than redeemed your early errors.’

  ‘And in the meantime,’ said the Doctor, ‘let me go and bury my oldest friend.’

  The Bottle Imp

  Note.—Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of the early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the root idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith. The root idea is there and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a new thing. And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer home.—R. L. S.

  So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child’s ball, and was not injured.

  ‘This is a strange thing,’ said Keawe. ‘For by the touch of it, as well as by the look, the bottle should be of glass.’

  ‘Of glass it is,’ replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; ‘but the glass of it was tempered in the flames of Hell.’

  THERE WAS a man of the Island of Hawaii, whom I shall call Keawe; for the truth is, he still lives, and his name must be kept secret; but the place of his birth was not far from Honaunau, where the bones of Keawe the Great lie hidden in a cave. This man was poor, brave, and active; he could read and write like a schoolmaster; he was a first-rate mariner besides, sailed for some time in the island steamers, and steered a whaleboat on the Hamakua coast. At length it came in Keawe’s mind to have a sight of the great world and foreign cities, and he shipped on a vessel bound to San Francisco.

  This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable; and, in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces. Upon this hill Keawe was one day taking a walk with his pocket full of money, viewing the great houses upon either hand with pleasure. ‘What fine houses these are!’ he was thinking, ‘and how happy must those people be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!’ The thought was in his mind when he came abreast of a house that was smaller than some others, but all finished and beautified like a toy; the steps of that house shone like silver, and the borders of the garden bloomed like garlands, and the windows were bright like diamond; and Keawe stopped and wondered at the excellence of all he saw. So stopping, he was aware of a man that looked forth upon him through a window so clear that Keawe could see him as you see a fish in a pool upon the reef. The man was elderly, with a bald head and a black beard; and his face was heavy with sorrow, and he bitterly sighed. And the truth of it is, that as Keawe looked in upon the man, and the man looked out upon Keawe, each envied the other.

  All of a sudden, the man smiled and nodded, and beckoned Keawe to enter, and met him at the door of the house.

  ‘This is a fine house of mine,’ said the man, and bitterly sighed. ‘Would you not care to view the chambers?’

  So he led Keawe all over it, from the cellar to the roof, and there was nothing there that was not perfect of its kind, and Keawe was astonished.

  ‘Truly,’ said Keawe, ‘this is a beautiful house; if I lived in the like of it, I should be laughing all day long. How comes it, then, that you should be sighing?’

  ‘There is no reason,’ said the man, ‘why you should not have a house in all points similar to this, and finer, if you wish. You have some money, I suppose?’

  ‘I have fifty dollars,’ said Keawe; ‘but a house like this will cost more than fifty dollars.’

  The man made a computation. ‘I am sorry you have no more,’ said he, ‘for it may raise you trouble in the future; but it shall be yours at fifty dollars.’

  ‘The house?’ asked Keawe.

  ‘No, not the house,’ replied the man; ‘but the bottle. For, I must tell you, although I appear to you so rich and fortunate, all my fortune, and this house itself and its garden, came out of a bottle not much bigger than a pint. This is it.’

  And he opened a lockfast place, and took out a round-bellied bottle with a long neck; the glass of it was white like milk, with changing rainbow colours in the grain. Withinsides something obscurely moved, like a shadow and a fire.

  ‘This is the bottle,’ said the man; and, when Keawe laughed, ‘You do not believe me?’ he added. ‘Try, then, for yourself. See if you can break it.’

  So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child’s ball, and was not injured.

  ‘This is a strange thing,’ said Keawe. ‘For by the touch of it, as well as by the look, the bottle should be of glass.’

  ‘Of glass it is,’ replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; ‘but the glass of it was tempered in the flames of Hell. An imp lives in it, and that is the shadow we behold there moving: or so I suppose. If any man buy this bottle the imp is at his command; all that he desires—love, fame, money, houses like this house, ay, or a city like this city—all are his at the word uttered. Napoleon had this bottle, and by it he grew to be the king of the world; but he sold it at the last, and fell. Captain Cook had this bottle, and by it he found his way to so many islands; but he, too, sold it, and was slain upon Hawaii. For, once it is sold, the power goes and the protection; and unless a man remain content with what he has, ill will befall him.’

  ‘And yet you talk of selling it yourself?’ Keawe said.

  ‘I have all I wish, and I am growing elderly,’ replied the man. ‘There is one thing the imp cannot do—he cannot prolong life; and, it would not be fair to conceal from you, there is a drawback to the bottle; for if a man die before he sells it, he must burn in Hell forever.’

  ‘To be sure, that is a drawback and no mistake,’ cried Keawe. ‘I would not meddle with the thing. I can do without a house, thank God; but there is one thing I could not be doing with one particle, and that is to be damned.’

  ‘Dear me, you must not run away with things,’ returned the man. ‘All you have to do is to use the power of the imp in moderation, and then sell it to someone else, as I do to you, and finish your life in comfort.’

  ‘Well, I observe two things,’ said Keawe. ‘All the time you keep sighing like a maid in love, that is one; and, for the other, you sell this bottle very cheap.’

  ‘I have told you already why I sigh,’ said the man. ‘It is because I fear my health is breaking up; and, as you said yourself, to die and go to the devil is a
pity for anyone. As for why I sell so cheap, I must explain to you there is a peculiarity about the bottle. Long ago, when the Devil brought it first upon earth, it was extremely expensive, and was sold first of all to Prester John for many millions of dollars; but it cannot be sold at all, unless sold at a loss. If you sell it for as much as you paid for it, back it comes to you again like a homing pigeon. It follows that the price has kept falling in these centuries, and the bottle is now remarkably cheap. I bought it myself from one of my great neighbours on this hill, and the price I paid was only ninety dollars. I could sell it for as high as eighty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, but not a penny dearer, or back the thing must come to me. Now, about this there are two bothers. First, when you offer a bottle so singular for eighty odd dollars, people suppose you to be jesting. And second—but there is no hurry about that—and I need not go into it. Only remember it must be coined money that you sell it for.’

  ‘How am I to know that this is all true?’ asked Keawe.

  ‘Some of it you can try at once,’ replied the man. ‘Give me your fifty dollars, take the bottle, and wish your fifty dollars back into your pocket. If that does not happen, I pledge you my honour I will cry off the bargain and restore your money.’

  ‘You are not deceiving me?’ said Keawe. The man bound himself with a great oath.

  ‘Well, I will risk that much,’ said Keawe, ‘for that can do no harm.’ And he paid over his money to the man, and the man handed him the bottle.

  ‘Imp of the bottle,’ said Keawe, ‘I want my fifty dollars back.’ And sure enough he had scarce said the word before his pocket was as heavy as ever.

  ‘To be sure this is a wonderful bottle,’ said Keawe.

  ‘And now good morning to you, my fine fellow, and the Devil go with you for me!’ said the man.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Keawe, ‘I don’t want any more of this fun. Here, take your bottle back.’

  ‘You have bought it for less than I paid for it,’ replied the man, rubbing his hands. ‘It is yours now; and, for my part, I am only concerned to see the back of you.’ And with that he rang for his Chinese servant, and had Keawe shown out of the house.