The Nyctalope vs Lucifer 3: The Triumph of the Nyctalope

by Jean de La Hire

  The voice fell silent.

  “What?” said Irène, her heartbeat increasing with a new dread.

  “Ah, that gets your attention?” said Lucifer. “I counted on it. Miss Ellen is, fundamentally, indifferent to me. I could let her live–all the more so because I’m certain now that I shall snuff out Henri’s father, Alexandre Prillant, in a flash, on June 10. Well, Irène, you shall see Miss Ellen die...”

  “Oh! Vile monster!” cried Irène, mad with indignation and pain.

  “That’s right, insult me!” mocked the satanic voice. “How beautiful you are now, my Irène! I only know one woman in all the world as beautiful as you: Laurence Païli. But you’ll see her in my home–she’ll be your sister and your rival!”

  “Monster! Monster!”

  “Cry out loud, Irène, as loudly as you can! Your cries have been heard. Miss Ellen is running, leaving Henri to Mattol, who–excellent man!–will had him over to Martin before coming to your aid. He’ll arrive too late... Here’s Miss Ellen! Her death will be symbolic. Like the animal that will seize her, I intend to extend my tentacles and apply my suckers to all humankind, Irène! But you’ll understand that later. For the moment, watch! Look in front of you–I insist!”

  Obedient to that voice resounding within her head, which caused the image to surge forth from her memory of a thin, red-haired man in a smoking-jacket, Irène looked in front of her...

  Immediately, she let out a piercing scream and leapt backwards. She bumped into a rock, tottered, fell to her knees and, clutching her temples, was petrified by the horror of what she saw.

  “Oh, Madame, what’s wrong?” the Englishwoman had cried, jumping upon the rock where Irène de Ciserat had been standing just as the latter recoiled in horror.

  Mechanically–or, rather, already possessed by the will-power of the distant Glô von Warteck–Miss Ellen looked in the direction in which the thing that had so terrified Irène must be...

  And the Englishwoman screamed.

  She howled as an exasperated dog howls at the prospect of its own death, in the phantasmagoria of a moonlit night, and in response to that lugubrious howl, Mattol, 100 meters away, shouted: “Irène! Miss Ellen! Hold on! Here I am!”

  Already, though, as if fascinated, the Englishwoman was walking into the water beneath the slanting rock. Some four meters away, just beneath the surface of the water, a monstrous creature was moving with hallucinatory slowness. It was a octopus–an enormous octopus, whose tentacles, several meters in length, were moving around it, coiling like snakes. Two huge black eyes stood out against its swollen magenta-striped ochreous body, expressive of voracious cruelty, simultaneously human and animal.

  And Miss Ellen was walking towards the octopus!

  The unfortunate woman was evidently in a somnambulistic state–a somnambulism from which nothing could awaken her, for neither the coldness of the water or Mattol’s appeals, nor those of Martin, who was in the dinghy with Henri and had rounded the reef, rowing with all possible speed, nor the echoes of their cries, could recall the Englishwoman to reason...

  When the water came up to her breast, she began to swim, mutely, towards the octopus. Not for long! One of the tentacles shot out of the water, whipped through the air and descended upon Miss Ellen, who was turned over by the force of the blow. Other tentacles immediately seized her and drew her under–already limp, as if dead...

  By the time that Mattol and Martin–the former standing beside Irène, the latter in the dinghy clutching little Henri, sobbing and writhing–shook off the invisible bonds that held them immobile by a effort of will and recovered the ability to act, the octopus was sliding sideways, settling its entire gelatinous mass upon Miss Ellen’s body. With a gentle movement, it drew away, its tentacles wrapped around her, and sank with her into the transparent water.

  A loud blast of a whistle split the air. Mattol and Martin turned their heads.

  “The Lampas!”

  Obedient to the orders he had been given, Bonnery had set the submarine astir as soon as Martin had begin to row. He, too, had heard the screams, understood that something abnormal was happening, and had summoned Raymond. The commander and his second were now on the deck with several mariners and the Lampas was coming closer, although it was forced to remain a certain difference from the reefs because of the risk of running into submarine rocks.

  “Raymond! Raymond” cried Mattol, getting hold of himself. “An octopus is carrying Miss Ellen away!”

  Mad with heroic devotion, Martin launched the dinghy at the rock, threw little Henri–who had almost fainted–into Mattol’s arms, and leapt into the sea with a long broad knife in his hand.

  A considerable agitation of the water ensued, a few fathoms distant; two tentacles emerged into the air, thrashing brutally. Martin and three other sailors who had come from the submarine, with hatchets in hand and their knives in their teeth, dived repeatedly into the foaming sea for several minutes, but it was all in vain. The octopus and Miss Ellen had disappeared into the inaccessible depths of the abyss.

  Raymond de Ciserat was too familiar with the ways of the sea to conserve the slightest hope, except for the recovery of the young woman’s corpse. He knew that the class of Cephalopoda–for which the term octopus is merely the common name–included individuals of colossal dimensions and insatiable voracity, whose mouths, which close exactly like a parrot’s beak, have edges so sharp that their jaws can cut through a man’s limb as easily as a razor cuts through a matchstick. How many maritime writers have recalled that Aristotle measured the length of one squid–a kind of cephalopod–as five cubits, which is more than three meters; that the museums of Trieste and Montpellier hold the skeletons of cephalopods measuring two meters; that our fishermen frequently see specimens whose length surpasses 1.80 meters; and, finally, that according to the calculations of naturalists, one of these animals with a body a mere two meters long would have tentacles longer than ten meters. That really is a formidable monster. For an octopus of that size, Miss Ellen was only small prey.8

  Even so, Raymond maneuvered the submarine into the depths into which the octopus had disappeared. Suited divers armed with cutlasses came out of the Lampas and searched for more than an hour. They did not bring back the octopus, nor the slightest shred of Miss Ellen’s white dress.

  In a room on the Lampas, with little Henri, numb with fright, on her knees and in her arms, Irène wept with her head rigid and her eyes wide open, insensible to Mattol’s attentions and Raymond’s words and caresses. She thought that she would not escape Lucifer if she did not submit to his demands, and that she would also expose all the people she loved to pain, torture and death.

  VII. The Teledynamo’s First Test

  Eventually, Irène de Ciserat seemed to calm down. She summoned Lili, her chambermaid, and handed Henri Prillant over to her. He had finally fallen into the benevolent sleep of childhood, after which life seemingly reclaims its rights and everything bad is forgotten.

  “What a frightful business Raymond! I thought I would go mad with horror and pity. You can leave me alone now. I’m quite calm.”

  Accustomed to the submarine’s routines, Irène knew that her husband was due in the conning-tower in a quarter of an hour. Leaving his wife to Mattol’s care, therefore, Raymond de Ciserat went to his post, saddened by Miss Ellen’s frightful death, but reassured with regard to Irène, for nothing in the tragic adventure had suggested to him that the spell-caster could possibly be involved in it.

  “Perhaps it would be best if you slept for a while, Irène,” Mattol said, when Ciserat had gone–but she gestured to him to be quiet and wait.

  She listened. When she was certain that her husband had reached the conning-tower, and that it was absolutely impossible for him to hear what she was about to say, the young woman’s attitude abruptly changed. She sat up straight in her armchair. Her face took on a wildly forceful expression. In a firm voice, she said to Mattol: “Sit down, Louis. I have to talk to you, because I want to tell you e
verything, so that later, when I’ve vanished, you’ll be able to save Raymond from madness and despair.”

  Mattol was stupefied by this speech. He let himself fall on to the edge of the divan, and stammered: “When you’ve vanished? Whatever can you mean, Irène?”

  “Keep a cool head, Louis!”

  That was an order. The young doctor was stung by it. He started abruptly, frowned, and stared at a hard-faced Irène he no longer recognized. After a pause, he said: “A cool head? I have one now.” Then, in a softer voice, accompanied by an affectionate gaze, he said: “I’m listening, Irène.”

  Still wild and resolute, the unhappy woman asked: “Did Saint-Clair give you the letter signed Lucifer that was handed to me clandestinely in Le Havre, to bring to the Bermudas?”

  “Yes,” said Mattol, shivering as a presentiment gripped his heart.

  “Have you read it?”

  “No, but Saint-Clair recited the text to me.”

  “And what did you think?” Irène asked, her eyes fixed on Mattol’s, as if she were trying to read his mind.

  The young scientist did not even think about lying. He simply replied: “I thought that the Nyctalope would set Lucifer straight before June 10.”

  “Do you still believe that?”

  “Yes–all the more so because of the Nyctalope’s great success in the Bermudas and the certain guarantee of...”

  “Of nothing at all,” Irène cut in, trenchantly.

  “What!” said the astonished and troubled Mattol, tormented by the presentiment of something terrible.

  “Of nothing at all!” Irène repeated. “The Nyctalope’s victory in the Bermudas was inconsequential. We’re all lost if I don’t obey Lucifer. He is the stronger and always will be.” She had lost her hard and impassioned stiffness; her voice had become sorrowful and pathetic. Tears glistened between her eyelids.

  He took her hands. Authoritative and pleading at the same time, he said: “Now, now Irène, don’t say things like that. We have proof that Lucifer is beaten–”

  “What proof?”

  “What? Your peace, since...”

  “Oh, you think so?” Abruptly withdrawing her hands, the unhappy woman, harsh and resolute again, went on: “Lucifer is present here–yes, all around us! Listen to me, Louis–Miss Ellen’s death was no accident, as you thought. She didn’t fall into the water. She was pushed into it by Lucifer’s will-power.”

  “Irène!”

  “Listen, Louis! Lucifer spoke to me, out there on the reefs. He repeated the terms of his odious letter to me–and to give me proof of his power, he hypnotized Miss Ellen, who went voluntarily to throw herself into the tentacles of the octopus before my eyes. You don’t believe me? You think that grief has made me mad? Well, Louis, you’re mistaken. I’m calm and resolved.”

  “Resolved to do what?” stammered Mattol, who dared not believe or doubt and was now afraid.

  “To obey him.”

  “Irène!”

  “Yes, to obey him! I don’t want all the people who love me to be tortured to death and I don’t want them to witness my own unavoidable martyrdom in the midst of their infernal torments.”

  “Irène!”

  “No! Lucifer is here, I tell you, all-powerful and...”

  She fell silent, and suddenly stood up, facing the white-faced Mattol–who had just got to his feet and was staring at a corner of the cabin: a dark corner, which the electric light could not reach, being masked on that side by a screen. Irène turned her head slightly to look into that same dark corner.

  At first, she could see nothing in the relative obscurity but a slender white column of vapor slowly undulating–but as soon as Mattol’s gaze was fixed on it, it rapidly became more distinct.

  The white vapor expanded and thickened; its undulations acquired a shape. That shape was that of a human body, flat and blurred, white with grey shadows. While being opaque, it was suggestive of transparency; while being compact, it communicated an impression of fluidity. At first, the head was only an indecisive vaporous oval, but its outline soon became more distinct and stable; a light coloration made it seem denser than the vapor, dark touches making eyes and a mouth. Suddenly, there was a face, living and ghostly at the same time, in which eyes sparkled, lips twisted into a sardonic smile, and disorderly red hair seemed ablaze.

  “Lucifer!” croaked Mattol, petrified.

  “Lucifer!” breathed Irène, who was shivering. Her teeth were chattering.

  But their dismay was gone in a flash. As if both of them had been injected with a serum that both animated and tranquilized them, Mattol and Irène suddenly felt lucid, cold and attentive, and each of them knew that the other felt the same. It was then that both of them–each knowing that the other heard it–heard a voice, not as if it came from the phantom, but as if it were inside themselves, in their own brains. The phantom’s lips moved, though, for it was evidently that which spoke.

  “Mattol believes you now,” it said, “since his eyes see and his ears hear. He may listen and judge!” After a pause charged with anguish, it added: “Irène, will you consent to come to me?”

  Unable to resist, Mattol turned his head slightly so that he could see both Irène and the phantom. What a spectacle! Like an exhausted body no longer able to sustain itself, the young woman fell to her knees, overwhelmed, her hands joined together in desperate prayer. Her uplifted face expressed distress and infinite sorrow. Her soul was in agony. Given the sublimity of her love for Raymond, her tenderness for her uncle, Professor Lourmel, her affection for her childhood friend, Louis, Irène had decided to sacrifice herself, resignedly making a gift of herself to the implacable monster. But what a martyrdom! To lose everything of which one has dreamed, everything in which one has found happiness, and to go, alone, to the torture and shame of a complete abandonment of oneself to some kind of frightful demon...

  “Raymond! Raymond!” she moaned–a last appeal, emitted by her entire being. But he could not hear–and if he had heard, what could he have done? Mattol was there, powerless to attempt a single gesture or pronounce a single word. He looked on, lost in sorrow and fright.

  With an inexpressible horror, which chilled him to the core, made his hair stand on end and set his hands and body trembling, Mattol heard Irène say: “Yes, yes! Spare them! I’m yours.” Then his eyes were irresistibly drawn to the phenomenon produced in the dark corner: the phantom was slowly fading away.

  Soon, when all the vapor had disappeared, Mattol felt something like an electric shock. He passed a hand over his forehead, which was suddenly steaming with cold sweat. He saw Irène lie down on the carpet, inanimate. Very much his own master, he bent down, carefully took hold of the young woman, lifted her up and deposited her on the divan. In the neighboring bathroom, he was able to find smelling salts. He quickly set about bringing Irène back to consciousness.

  She opened her eyes, accepted her friend’s attentions and tried to get up. They stood up, facing one another, hand in hand. They looked at one another with inexpressible despair.

  “Louis,” Irène said, eventually, “do you have any more doubt?”

  “Alas, no.”

  “We must say nothing to Raymond.”

  “I understand why it’s necessary to say nothing.”

  “When I’m gone, Louis, you must keep an eye on him, Uncle Onésime and Aunt Luce.”

  “Irène!”

  “And yourself too.”

  “I’ll die, Irène.”

  “You’ll live, for them, Louis.”

  “Alas!”

  Standing there, looking at one another, they wept–but there was a noise of footsteps and slamming doors, and a voice coming nearer.

  “Yes, my dear chap, yes. It’s marvelous that you’ve had the same idea, wonderful! We’ll do better than Nansen or Peary. Ah! It’s an exploit worthy of the famous Captain Nemo! To the North Pole by submarine. The Lampas can do it. Why didn’t we think of it sooner?”

  Mattol and Irène had just enough time to wip
e away their tears, to summon up the heroic strength they needed to stop weeping, and smile. They were still trembling with horror, though, for even as they heard and understood what Raymond was saying, they also heard the incontestable voice of Lucifer resounding in their heads, saying: “Although my phantom perispirit is dissipating, I am present nonetheless. My body and mind are at the North Pole, in a citadel of mysteries and prodigies that I built for myself and my Teledynamo. The Teledynamo is the machine that will make me the all-powerful god of the terrestrial world. From now on, I shall hypnotize the entire crew of the Lampas–and your own husband, Irène, will bring you to me at the North Pole!”

  Mattol and Irène heard and understood that too–and from that moment on, they were obliged to accept that they had descended into madness: an alienation more extravagant than all the cases of dementia recorded by the world’s psychiatrists.

  Ciserat and his first mate, Bonnery, came into the cabin.

  “Ah, there you are!” cried Raymond, exultantly. To all appearances, he had completely forgotten Miss Ellen’s death–and Bonnery had forgotten too, for the young officer was laughing. “I told Luc that you must be here, not in the drawing-room,” continued Raymond. His abnormal cheerfulness seemed sinister to Irène and Mattol, who understood its cause only too well. “I’ve had an idea. We’re going to undertake a polar expedition. Yes, instead of going back and forth through archipelagoes or along continental coasts that have nothing new to show us, we’ll attempt to reach the North Pole in the Lampas. I’ve given the orders. Kervalec’s at the tiller, and we’re heading for the Pole at top speed. What do you think of that?”

  Mattol made an effort, and succeeded in saying: “Splendid!”

  “Isn’t it?” said Bonnery.

  The commander’s eyes, and those of his first mate, were sparkling with joy. A sort of feverish excitement made them pace back and forth and their laughter had a nervous and insane quality about it.

  “My God!” said Irène, who was still lucid. “It’s as if they were possessed.” She spoke in a whisper so that only Mattol heard her.