Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories

by Beach, Rex Ellingwood

  She poised like a sunbeam just beyond his reach, her bosom heaving, her lips as ripe and full as the grapes above, her eyes afire with invitation. In answer to his cry she made a glowing promise, subtle, yet warm and soft, as of the flesh.

  "To-night, when the moon hangs over yonder pass, I shall play on the balcony outside my window. Beneath is a door, unbarred. Come, for I shall be alone in all the castle, and there you will find music made flesh, and flesh made music." Then she was gone.

  The soul of the priest had been in torment heretofore, but chaos engulfed it during the hours that followed. He was like a man bereft of reason; he burned with fever, yet his whole frame shook as from a wintry wind. He prayed, or tried to, but his eyes beheld no vision save a waiting Moorish maid with hair like night, his stammering tongue gave forth no Latin, but repeated o'er and o'er her parting promise:

  "There you will find music made flesh and flesh made music."

  He realized that the foul fiend had him by the throat, and undertook to cast him off; but all the time he knew that when the moon came, bringing with it the cadence of a song, he would go, even though his going led to perdition. And go he did, groveling in his misery. His sandals spurned the rocky path when he heard the voice of Zahra sighing through the branches; then, when he had reached the castle wall, he saw her bending toward him from the balcony above.

  "I come to you," she whispered; and an instant later her form showed white against the blackness of the low stone door in front of him. There, in the gloom, for one brief instant, her yielding body met his, her hands reached upward and drew his face down to her own; then out from his hungry arms she glided, and with rippling laughter fled into the blackness.

  "Zahra!" he cried.

  "Come!" she whispered, and when he hesitated, "Do you fear to follow?"

  "Zahra!" he repeated; but his voice was strange, and he tore at the cloth that bound his throat, stumbling after her, guided only by her voice.

  Always she was just beyond his reach; always she eluded him; yet never did he lose the perfume of her presence nor the rustle of her silken garments. Over and over he cried her name, until at last he realized from the echo of his calling that he had come into a room of great dimensions and that the girl was gone.

  For an instant he was in despair, until her voice reached him from above:

  "I do but test you, Christian priest. I am waiting."

  "'Flower of the World,'" he stammered, hoarsely. "Whence lead the stairs?"

  "And do you love me, then?" she queried, in a tone that set him all ablaze.

  "Zahra," he repeated, "I shall perish for want of you."

  "How do you measure this devotion?" she insisted, softly. "Will it cool with the dawn, or are you mine in truth forever and all time?"

  "I have no thought save that of you. Come, Light of my Soul, or I shall die."

  "Do you then adore me above all things, earthly and heavenly, that you forsake your vows? Answer, that my arms may enfold you."

  He groaned like a man upon a rack, and the agony of that cry was proof conclusive of his abject surrender.

  Then, through the dead, black silence of the place there came a startling sound. It was a peal of laughter, loud, evil, triumphant; and, as if it had been a signal, other mocking voices took it up, until the great vault rang to a fiendish din.

  "Ho! Hassam! Elzemah! Close the doors!" cried the voice of Abul Malek.

  "Bring the lights."

  There followed a ponderous clanging and the rattle of chains, the while Fray Joseph stood reeling in his tracks. Then suddenly from every side burst forth the radiance of many lamps. Torches sprang into flame, braziers of resin wood began to smoke, flambeaux were lit, and, half blinded by the glare, the Christian monk stood revealed in the hall of Abul Malek.

  He cast his eyes about, but on every side he beheld grinning men of swarthy countenance, and at sight of his terror the hellish merriment broke forth anew, until the whole place thundered with it. Facing him, upon an ornamental balcony, stood the Moor, and beside him, with elbows on the balustrade and face alight with sinister enjoyment, stood his daughter.

  Stunned by his betrayal, Joseph imploringly pronounced her name, at which a fresh guffaw resounded. Then above the clamor she inquired, with biting malice:

  "Dost thou any longer doubt, oh, Christian, that I adore thee?" At this her father and her brothers rocked back and forth, as if suffocated by the humor of this jest.

  The lone man turned, in mind to flee, but every entrance to the hall was closed, and at each portal stood a grinning Saracen. He bowed his shaven head, and his shame fell slowly upon him.

  "You have me trapped," he said. "What shall my punishment be?"

  "This," answered the Moorish lord; "to acknowledge once again, before us all, the falseness of your faith."

  "That I have never done; that I can never do," said Joseph.

  "Nay! But a moment ago you confessed that you adored my daughter above all things, earthly or heavenly. You forswore your vows for her. Repeat it, then."

  "I have sinned before God; but I still acknowledge Him and crave His mercy," said the wretched priest.

  "Hark you, Joseph. You are the best of monks. Have you ever done evil before this night?"

  "My life has been clean, but the flesh is weak. It was the witchcraft of Satan in that woman's music. I prayed for strength, but I was powerless. My soul shall pay the penalty."

  "What sort of God is this who snares His holiest disciple, with the lusts of the flesh?" mocked Abul Malek. "Did not your prayers mount up so high? Or is His power insufficient to forestall the devil? Bah! There is but one true God, and Mohammed is His Prophet. These many years have I labored to rend your veil of holiness asunder and to expose your faith to ridicule and laughter. This have I done to-night."

  "Stop!" cried the tortured monk. "Bring forth a lance."

  "Nay! Nay! You shall hear me through," gloated Abul Malek; and again

  Joseph bowed his tonsured head, murmuring:

  "It is my punishment."

  Ringed about thus by his enemies, the priest stood meekly, while the sweat came out upon his face; as the Saracen mocked and jeered at him he made no answer, except to move his lips in whispered grayer. Had it not been for this sign they might have thought him changed to stone, so motionless and so patient did he stand. How long the baiting lasted no one knew; it may have been an hour, then Joseph's passive silence roused the anger of the overlord, who became demoniac in his rage. His followers joined in harrying the victim, until the place became a babel. Finally Elzemah stepped forward, torch in hand, and spat upon the giant black-robed figure.

  The monk's face whitened, it grew ghastly; but he made no movement.

  Then in a body the infidels rushed forth to follow the example of

  Abul Malek's son. They swarmed about the Christian, jeering, cursing,

  spitting, snatching at his garments, until their master cried:

  "Enough! The knave has water in his veins. His blood has soured.

  Deserted by his God, his frame has withered and his vigor fled."

  "Yes," echoed his daughter. "He is great only in bulk. Had he been a Man I might have loved him; but the evil has fled out of him, leaving nothing but his cassock. Off with his robe, Elzemah. Let us see if aught remains."

  With swift movement her brother tore at the monk's habit, baring his great bosom. At this insult to his cloth a frightful change swept over the victim. He upheaved his massive shoulders, his gleaming head rose high, and in the glaring light they saw that his face had lost all sweetness and humility; it was now the visage of a madman. All fleshly passion stored through thirty years of cloister life blazed forth, consuming reason and intelligence; with a sweep of his mighty arms he cleared a space about him, hurling his enemies aside as if they were made of straw. He raised his voice above the din, cursing God and men and Moors. As they closed in upon him he snatched from the hands of a lusty slave a massive wrought-iron brazier, and whirling it high above
his head, he sent its glowing coals flying into the farthest corners of the room. Then with this weapon he laid about him right and left, while men fell like grain before the reaper.

  "At him!" shouted Abul Malek, from his balcony. "Pull down the weapons from the walls! The fool is mad!"

  Zahra clutched at her father's sleeve and pointed to a distant corner, where a tongue of flame was licking the dry woodwork and hangings. Her eyes were flashing and her lips were parted; she bent forward, following the priest with eagerness.

  "Allah be praised!" she breathed. "He is a Man!"

  Elzemah strove to sheathe his poinard in the monk's bare breast, but the brazier crushed him down. Across the wide floor raged the contest, but the mighty priest was irresistible. Hassam, seeing that the priest was fighting toward the balcony, flung himself upon the stairs, crying to his father and his sister to be gone. By now the castle echoed with a frightful din through which arose a sinister crackling. The light increased moment by moment, and there came the acrid smell of smoke.

  Men left the maniac to give battle to the other fury. Some fled to the doors and fought with their clumsy fastenings, but as they flung them back a draught sucked through, changing the place into a raging furnace.

  With his back against the stairs, Hassam hewed at the monk with his scimitar; he had done as well had he essayed to fell an oak with a single blow. Up over him rushed the giant, to the balcony above, where Abul Malek and his daughter stood at bay in the trap of their own manufacture. There, in the glare of the mounting flames, Fray Joseph sank his mighty fingers through the Moor's black beard.

  The place by now was suffocating, and the roar of the conflagration had drowned all other sounds. Men wrapped their robes about their heads and hurled themselves blindly at the doors, fighting with one another, with the licking flames, with the dead that clogged the slippery flags. But the maid remained. She tore at the tattered cassock of the priest, crying into his ear:

  "Come, Joseph! We may yet escape."

  He let the writhing Abul Malek slip from out his grasp and peered at her through the smother.

  "Thou knowest me not?" she queried. "I am Zahra." Her arms entwined his neck for a second time that night, but with a furious cry he raised his hands and smote her down at his feet, then he fled back to the stairs and plunged down into the billows that raged ahead of the fresh night wind.

  The bells of San Sebastian were clanging the alarm, the good monks were toiling up the path toward the inferno which lit the heavens, when, black against the glare, they saw a giant figure approaching. It came reeling toward them, vast, mighty, misshapen. Not until it was in their very midst did they recognize their brother, Joseph. He was bent and broken, he was singed of body and of raiment, he gibbered foolishly; he passed them by and went staggering to his cell. Long ere they reached the castle it was but a seething mountain of flame; and in the morning naught remained of Abul Malek's house but heated ruins.

  Strange tales were rife concerning the end of the Moor and of his immediate kin, but the monks could make little out of them, for they were garbled and too ridiculous for belief. No Mussulman who survived the fire could speak coherently of what had happened in the great hall, nor could Fray Joseph tell his story, for he lay stricken with a malady which did not leave him for many weeks. Even when he recovered he did not talk; for although his mind was clear on most matters, nay, although he was as simple and as devout as ever, a kind Providence had blotted out all memory of Zahra, of his sin, and of the temptation that had beset his flesh.

  So it is that even to this day "The Teeth of the Moor" remains a term of mystery to most of the monks of San Sebastian.

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