Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  A moment later she began, irrelevantly: “Ethics! Ethics! who can teach them? One must know, and heed no teaching. All preconceived ideas may be wrong; I am quite sure I was wrong — sometimes.”

  And again irrelevantly, “I was horribly intolerant once.”

  “Once you asked me a question,” he said. “We separated because I refused to answer you.”

  She closed her eyes and the color flooded her face.

  “I shall never ask it again,” she said.

  But he went on: “I refused to reply. I was an ass; I had theories, too. They’re gone, quite gone. I will answer you now, if you wish.”

  Her face burned. “No! No, don’t — don’t answer me; don’t, I beg of you! I — I know now that even the gods—” She covered her face with her hands. The boat drifted rapidly on; it was flood-tide.

  “Yes, even the gods,” he said. “There is the answer. Now you know.”

  Overhead the sky grew pink; wedge after wedge of water-fowl swept through the calm evening air, and their aërial whimpering rush sounded faintly over the water.

  “Kathleen!”

  She made no movement.

  Far away a dull shock set the air vibrating. The Dione was saluting her castaways. The swift Southern night, robed in rose and violet, already veiled the forest; and the darkling water deepened into purple.

  “Jack!”

  He rose and crept forward to the stern where she was sitting. Her hands hung idly; her head was bent.

  Into the purple dusk they drifted, he at her feet, close against her knees. Once she laid her hands on his shoulders, peering at him with wet eyes.

  And, with his lips pressed to her imprisoned hands, she slipped down into the boat beside him, crouching there, her face against his.

  So, under the Southern stars, they drifted home together. The Dione fired guns and sent up rockets, which they neither heard nor saw; Major Brent toddled about the deck and his guests talked scandal; but what did they care!

  Darrow, standing alone on the wrecked launch, stared at the stars and waited for the search-boat to return.

  It was dawn when the truth broke upon Major Brent. It broke so suddenly that he fairly yelped as the Dione poked her white beak seaward.

  It was dawn, too, when a pigeon-toed Seminole Indian stood upon the veranda of a house which was covered with blossoms of Pasque Florida.

  Silently he stood, inspecting the closed door; then warily stooped and picked up something lying on the veranda at his feet. It was a gold comb.

  “Heap squaw,” he said, deliberately. “Tiger will go.”

  But he never did.

  THE END

  THE TREE OF HEAVEN

  This short story collection builds upon the success of Chambers’ atmospheric ‘Young Man in a Hurry’, presenting several further tales linked by a nocturnal, snowy New York setting. As with Chambers’ previous collection, the atmosphere is light and romantic, but there are also hints of the weird in some of the stories. The collection was first published in 1907.

  Cover of the first edition

  CONTENTS

  THE CARPET OF BELSHAZZAR

  THE SIGN OF VENUS

  THE CASE OF MR. HELMER

  THE TREE OF DREAMS

  THE BRIDAL PAIR

  EX CURIA

  THE GOLDEN POOL

  OUT OF THE DEPTHS

  THE SWASTIKA

  THE GHOST OF CHANCE

  Title page of the first edition

  TO MY FRIEND

  AUSTIN CORBIN

  CHAPTER I

  THE CARPET OF BELSHAZZAR

  We all were glad to see him; on his return he had found us all his friends. Nobody had spoken to him about his abrupt departure from New York; nobody had mentioned Westover; nothing connected with that episode was even hinted at by any of us, I believe, during his short sojourn among us. It was he himself who spoke of it first.

  Of course during his absence we had followed his career; many among us had read and tried to understand what he had written in his three world-famous volumes, “Occult Philosophy,”

  “The Weight of Human Souls,” and “The Interstellar Laws of Psychic Phenomena.”

  It seemed, at times, here to us in America, that it was impossible that the man we had known so well could have become the great Psychic Scientist who had written these three astounding works — who now occupied the Chair of Psychical Philosophy in the great University of Trebizond — the man who was the confidential adviser of the Shah of Persia, the mentor of the Ameer of Afghanistan, the inspirer of the greatest diplomat of all the East — the late Akhound of Swat.

  As he sat there in his immaculate evening dress, bronzed, youthful looking, presiding so quietly at the little dinner which he had given to us as a half-formal, half-intimate leave-taking before he sailed, it seemed to us incredible that this man, now on his return journey to Trebizond via Lhassa, could be the beloved and dreaded arbiter of Asiatic politics — the one white man in all the Orient who had ever been wholly respected, and absolutely feared by the temporal and spiritual heads of nations, religions, clans, and sects.

  That, of course, he was what is popularly known as an adept, we supposed. What his wisdom, his insight, his amazing knowledge of the occult might include, we preferred, rather uncomfortably, not to conjecture.

  There is, naturally, in all of us a childlike desire to hear of marvels; there is also a stronger and more childish desire to see miracles performed.

  I am quite sure that we all hoped he might perhaps care to do something for us — merely to convince us. And at first, I know that many among us, seated there in the private room at the Lenox Club, felt a trifle ill at ease and a little in awe of this man with whom we were at such close quarters.

  There was nothing particularly remarkable about the dinner; it was the usual excellent affair one might expect at the Lenox; the wines perfect, the service flawless.

  And now, smoking our cigars, lounging in groups over the flower-laden table, we fell into the old, intimate, easy channels of conversation, chatting of past days, of our hopes and ambitions.

  And our host, quiet, self-contained, pushed back his chair, looking somewhat curiously, I thought, from one to the other. And I thought, too, as his pleasant bronzed features changed from a faint smile to a graver expression, and then reverted to the smile for a moment, that he seemed to see something in each of us that was perhaps hidden from ourselves — that, as his eyes swept us, he was not only capable of reading much of what was not understood by us, but also something in the hidden future which awaited each of us.

  So strongly did this idea begin to take hold of me that it began to make me uneasy. I felt, too, that others among us harbored that same idea — for the conversation was less accented now, and intermittent; voices had fallen to a lower, quieter pitch; and after a little nobody spoke.

  Then I saw that we all were looking straight at our host, as though under some subtle and fascinated compulsion.

  He sat very still; his composure appeared a trifle forced, as though he had voicelessly summoned us to concentrate upon him our attention, and was now searching for the exact words for some statement which he had meant to make to us all.

  After a moment a slight flush crept over his handsome face. He said:

  “You fellows are very good to come here and let me take leave of you so pleasantly. You have been very kind to me since I have come again among you. The sort of friendship that asks nothing but takes a man for granted is a good sort. Helmer,” — he looked at the sculptor Helmer—” I shall see you soon again.” We all turned in surprise to Helmer, who seemed as surprised as we were. “I shall see you sooner than you expect.... Smith!” — he smiled at J. Abingdon Smith, 3d— “some day you will uproot a Tree of Dreams, but not the dream, Smith; that will become very real when you awake — as true” — and he turned to the man on his left—” as true as a dream which you shall dream under the Sign of Venus.”

  We sat there breathless, expectant. He
was doing something after all; he was prophesying, in a curious sort of manner, probably speaking in symbols. And though we could not understand, we listened while the little shivers fluttered our pulses.

  Then he looked at Edgerton, smiling; and Edgerton flushed up and looked back at him, almost defiantly.

  “Edgerton,” he said, “don’t worry too much. What is not to be settled in court can sometimes be settled — ex curia.” And to the young man on his right: “Doctor, don’t overwork. If you do you will learn a stranger truth than is locked up among the molecules and atoms in your laboratory!” Then he leaned across the table and laid one hand on Leeds’s shoulder. “I congratulate you,” he said, smiling; “you’ve got a good-natured ghost following you about. But he’ll leave you if you turn idle. And don’t be afraid, my boy.”

  “I’m not afraid,” said young Leeds, rather pallid, but straightening up in his chair.

  Our host laughed; then his face changed, and he raised his eyes to Shannon:

  “Where is Harrod?” he asked slowly.

  “At Bar Harbor,” replied Shannon, “I believe.”

  “I thought so. And — remember one thing — there is a certain law which governs the validity of a check drawn to a man’s order when that check has been signed by a man no longer living. But, Shannon, the intention is the important thing in such a matter.”

  “What, exactly, do you mean?” asked Shannon, astonished.

  But our host had already turned to Escourt: “Captain,” he said, “you sail — when?”

  “I have no sailing orders,” laughed Escourt.

  “Not yet?” Our host looked quietly at the young officer. “Well, it isn’t the length of a voyage that counts, Escourt — nor the size of the troopship. No; you will anchor, some day, in a smaller craft than you started in, in the Port of the Golden Pool.”

  Escourt, still smiling, waited; but our host sat silent, head bent, one hand on the edge of the tablecloth.

  “Not one of you,” he said, without raising his eyes, “not one among you but who shall come face to face with what you still consider miracles.... Even Hildreth, yonder” — Hildreth jumped— “even Hildreth shall learn from the Swastika.”

  “Swa — swat? What — what?” stammered Hildreth.

  “Nothing to alarm you,” smiled the other; then again the swift shadow fell across his face.

  “Not one man among you who has not proven his friendship for me,” he said, looking up and around. And to me he added: “You must prove it still further by telling fearlessly to the world what there will be to tell after I have gone, and after my words have been proven — the words I have spoken here to-night — and which no one among you understands.... But you all will understand them. And when the last man among you has understood” — turning again to me—” you must bear witness to the world, bear witness in printed page and over your own signature. Do you promise?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Then very quietly he looked around the table, and leaned forward, regarding each man in turn.

  “I think,” he said, “that it is time you understood exactly the facts about which you have forborne to question me. And I mean to tell you before we part; I mean to tell you the truth concerning Westover and — all that happened.... And when you know these facts, then you may begin to surmise why I went to Trebizond, why I remain, and — and — what miracle of happiness I have found there — for the third time reincarnated.”

  He leaned back in his chair; his clear eyes became fixed and dreamy. Then he began to speak, in a low voice, as though to himself:

  * * * * *

  Time, and the funeral of Time, alas! — and the Old Year’s passing-bell! Whistles from city and river, deep horns sounding from the foggy docks; and under my window a voice and a song — ah! that young voice in the street below calling me through the falling snow!

  If it be true that Time makes all hurts well, I do not know; and “a thousand years in Thy sight is but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night”; a thousand years! And this also is true; the flames of love make hot the furnace of Abaddon.

  We were in the gallery as usual, Geraldine and I — the gallery where the carpets of the East were hung along the shadowy walls. For lately it was my pleasure to acquire rare rugs, and it was my profession to furnish expert opinion upon the age and origin of Oriental carpets, and to read and interpret the histories of forgotten emperors and the mysteries of long-forgotten gods from the colors and intricate flowery labyrinths tied in silk or wool to the warps of some dead sultan’s lustrous tapestry.

  Here in the long sky gallery hung my own rugs against the arabesque incrusted-ivory panels — Tabriz, Shiraz, Sehna, and Saruk — a somber blaze of color shot with fire — all rare, some priceless; Turkish Kulah, softly silky as a golden lion’s hide, Persian Sehna, shimmering with rose and violet lights, fiercely brilliant rugs from Sarnarkand, superbly flowered, secreting deep in every floral thicket traceries of the ancient Mongol conqueror; Feraghans glowing like jewel-sewn velvets set with the Herati and the lotus — symbols of Egypt or of China, as you please to interpret the oldest pattern in the world.

  Far in the gallery’s amber-tinted gloom the red of Ispahan dominated, subduing fiery vistas to smoldering harmony through which, like a vast sapphire set in opals, glimmered the superb lost Persian blue.

  There was one other rug, an Eighur, the famous so-called “Babilu,” or “Carpet of Belshazzar”; but it hung alone in imperial magnificence behind the locked doors of a marble room, which it seemed to fill with a soft luster of its own, radiating from the mystic “Tree of Heaven” woven in its center.

  We were, as I say, in this gallery; Geraldine poring over an illuminated volume on cuneiform inscriptions, I, with pad and pencil, idly shifting and reshifting the Kufic key to the ancient cipher, which always left me stranded where I had begun with the stately repetition:

  “King of Kings —

  King of Kings —

  King of Kings—”

  As for Westover, my cousin, he was, as usual, in the laboratory fussing with his venomous extracts — an occupation which, to my dismay, he had taken up within the year, working, as he explained, on the theory that every poison has its antidote. Yet it seemed to me that he was more anxious to invent some new and subtle toxic than to devise the remedy.

  From where I sat I could not see him, but the crystalline tinkle of his glass retorts and bottles distracted my attention from the penciled calculations. Without moving my head, I glanced across the room at Geraldine. She looked up immediately, raising her level eyebrows in mute inquiry as though I had moved or spoken; then, realizing that I had not, she bent above the book once more, the warm color stealing to her cheeks.

  Within the year a wordless intimacy had grown up between us; we never understood it, never acknowledged it, and at times it disconcerted us.

  I sat silent, tracing with my pencil series after series of futile Kufic combinations with the cuneiforms, but ever the first turn of the ancient key creaked in my ears,

  “King of Kings —

  King of Kings—”

  until the triverbal reiteration wore on my nerves.

  Geraldine leaned back abruptly, closing her book.

  “I’m tired and nervous,” she said. “You may wear out your eyes and temper if you choose — and you’re doing the latter, for I’m as restless as an eel. Besides, I’m lonely, and I’m going back to the East — if you’ll come, too.”

  I laughed, understanding what she meant by the “East.”

  “Will you come with me?” she insisted.

  “Yes,” I said, “whenever you are ready.”

  She sprang to her feet, scattering the illuminated pages over the floor, and stood an instant facing me, tall, dark-eyed, smiling, brushing back the lustrous hair from her cheeks.

  “Where is Jim?” she asked — although we both knew.

  “In the laboratory,” I replied mechanically.

  Still busy with her
hair, she regarded me dreamily out of those dark, sweet eyes of hers.

  “It would be wonderful,” she mused, “if Jim should find an antidote to death; but I wish it were not necessary to kill so many little helpless creatures. Did you hear that pitiful sound in there yesterday? Was it something he was killing?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. And after a silence: “What are you going to do?”

  She shook her head vaguely and leaned against the window, looking out into the rain.

  “Shall we go back to our inscriptions?” I suggested.

  She shook her head again. After a while she turned away from the window, stifling a dainty yawn, and stretched out, languidly straightening up to the full height of her young body.

  “I feel stupid,” she said; “I’m tired of cryptograms and the pages of dusty books. I’m tired of the rain, too. The languor of April is in me. I’m homesick for lands I never knew. So come back to the East with me, Dick.”

  She held out her hand to me with a confident little smile; and knowing what she meant, I acquiesced in her caprice, and conducted her solemnly to the piano, leaving her before it.

  She stood there for a space, musing, her lovely head bent; then, still standing, she struck a sequence of chords — chords pulsating with color; and through them flashed strange little trills like threads of tinsel.

  “This is an Eighur carpet I am dreaming of,” she murmured, as the music swelled, glowing as tints and hues glow in the old dyes of the East.

  Wave on wave of color seemed to spread from the keys under her fingers; she looked back at me over her shoulder with a warning nod.

  “I shall begin to weave very soon. Khiounnou horsemen may appear and frighten me for a moment — but I shall finish. Listen! I am at the loom.”

  Seating herself, she developed out of the flowing, somber harmony a monotonous minor theme, suddenly checked by a distant rattle like the clatter of nomad lances on painted stirrups; then she picked up the thread of the melody again, dropped it, breathless for a moment’s quivering silence, resumed it, twisting it into delicate arabesques, threading it across the dull, rich harmonies, at first slowly, then faster, faster, swift as the flying fingers of a nomad maid tying fretted silver in a Ghiordes knot. The whirring tempo was the cadence of the loom; soft feathery notes flew like carded wool; thicker, duller, softer grew the fabric, dense, silky, heavily lustrous.